


Missing Pages

by WishStone



Category: DARLING In The FRANXX (Anime)
Genre: Body Horror, Canon Rewrite, Deviates From Canon, F/M, Implied Sexual Content, Medical Experimentation, Mind Manipulation, Rated For Violence, Retelling, Sexual Content, Sexual Tension, rated for language
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-29
Updated: 2020-05-29
Packaged: 2020-05-29 13:08:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 18
Words: 53,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19400950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WishStone/pseuds/WishStone
Summary: THAR BE SPOILERS - If you have not watched the anime or read the manga, please do yourself a favour and go watch till episode 15, 17 if you are curious. After that, I will not be held responsible...A broken and torn planet Earth, inhabited by enormous complexes called Plantations, is found locked into decades of war with the dreaded and deadly Klaxosaurs. Each Plantation has their own corps created by pairs of young pilots controlling powerful FRANXX - high-powered robots created to fight and destroy the Klaxosaur threat.Some of these pilots are under direct control of APE, the de facto governing body of Earth. One such directly controlled pilot carries the designation Zero Two. And she is special in many ways.This is what I had hoped for the series would become, before Episode 19 threw the hard work of world building out the window.I am not sure how much time I will devote here, as my main focus has been Persona4 for many years now, but some things... needed to be written or drive me insane.





	1. Chapter 1

"You could at least _try_ to look as if you are paying attention, Zero Two," Doctor Franxx sighed behind her.

"Why should I bother?" The girl kept her head lowered, the broad rim of her uniform's large hat shielding most of her features. "Another pointless _ritual_ ," she pronounced the word with disdain, "for someone with whom I will spend a few hours teamed up, if I’m lucky." Her frown remained invisible to onlookers. "Pointless."

"This one may be different, Zero Two."

"Sure, sure, like you have said about the last four now. I can barely sortie anymore for all the time I waste with new bonding rituals."

Before them, the holograms of the leaders of Plantation 73 droned on in phrases known by heart by anyone present. But it was new. It was different. It was something outside of boredom. The seats, filled with holographic images of the viewers at home, would translate to the city as if they were really there.

Zero Two idly wondered how many actually were tuned in.

These rituals, as they called them, were sprinkled-in flashes of not-everyday for those inhabiting these empty, pointless containers they called cities. Brief flashes of ‘other’, moments of entertainment for those who had lived for centuries and who would continue going in circles of boredom and excitement. With the exception of the few who raised children in the Garden, or those who supervised the Partners, these people might as well be dead.

The girl hated them, hated their cities, hated the pointless repetition.

But they gave her the proving grounds she needed. They were her stage, as they moved her from place to place, only too kill more, to consume more, to be different each time.

They gave her the fuel she strived for; the means of reaching her one goal in life.

Anything that happened around and outside of that goal felt pointless. Like this damn speech.

"...and so," the Mayor concluded, "standing before us again are joined Stamen and Pistil; symbols of our hope and the human spirit, the sign of our will to fight and survive!"

A cheer rose from the holographic onlookers, prompting Zero Two to finally lift her head and glance to her side.

The Stamen they had given her this time had been introduced to her as a frontline veteran. He was taller than her, something she did not experience often. Just about grey all over, too, showing his age. And, part of her thought bitterly, his reason for being beside her right now was part of that status. Apparently 081 had survived the front lines for an impressive four years now; had been partnered with a dozen Pistils in this time.

 _'There is only so much death one can endure before one yearns for their own,'_ he had said as both an introduction and an explanation. He was convinced he would die in her care.

And, she mused, that was possibly true.

The biggest problem with a Stamen this old... how much could he feed her? She would not even entertain any hopes that this one would be more than a one-time ride, after all.

When he had taken her away from the Nines, the doctor had promised her that this new FRANXX was more suited to her needs. By this, he meant that its stampede would be easier to achieve and control, she knew. He had not created it to consider anyone but her. And while she was pleased he had finally listened, she wondered why it looked so different.

It’s controls also were reversed. She was used to be the one joining, not being the one joined. It had taken some time to get used to that feeling, and she still hated it. It felt like an intrusion of hers; felt, as if whoever joined into her tried to take the place of her Darling.

That she mockingly had called some of them Darling, if only to feed their fires for just this short burst longer, well, he will forgive her that. She is doing this all to find him, after all.

FRANXX were elegant, but functional. This one had odd protrusions, prominent colours, and the lance it was equipped with looked somewhat different from the ones she was used to with the Nines and other squads she had stayed with.

Stepping beside her now, to have the smallest of their fingers bound in ceremony, 081 flicked his gaze at her, then stared forward again. "At least try to make it look like this means anything to you, 002. This is not for our benefit."

"Ze-Ro-Tu. I told you. I have a _name_."

"We are tools. We do not need names."

The girl gazed down again. "You're wrong."

But the doc had been right, she admitted to herself as she withdrew into her mind once more. The Lioness was beautiful. She rode her with ease, and if her Stamen was still conscious when she entered Stampede mode, they normally fed her enough power for much longer fights than she had experienced before in any standard FRANXX.

She tried to count them in her mind. This one, 081, he would be... what, number fourteen for her since then?

The last one had not been tasty. She had licked him, as she had with all of them. And 762 tasted like mouldy, dry grains. Lingering like old sweat on her tongue for hours after he died, too. But he had fuelled her rampage for nearly an hour, before forty smaller Klaxosaurs laid at her feet.

He had been a terrible match, and she knew from the start. There was a kind of lust in his eyes when they were joined. A thirst for power - and for the wrong kind of power.

Like so many other idiots, he must have only heard ‘one of the Nine’ and decided that it would be prestigious, or elevating, or... or _something_ for him. He, like so many others, saw her as an end to his means. A tool for goals. And she did not need her Partner to think that way, when she had several labs worth of toadies of Papa and Franxx thinking that way already.

And before that one, she had taken over someone called 073. She had tasted him, naturally. They shook hands and she gave her gloved palm a careful lick at the time.

It was pretty much what she had feared it would be.

He reeked of drive and tasted like ash. She knew he would not last long the moment she tasted him, and she knew he would not return from their very next sortie. And even though she had told Franxx, he said it was vital they'd 'try him out'. Whatever he meant by that.

She felt 081 move his foot to tap her own to catch her attention.

"As you stand before us on this wonderful day," the Mayor intoned, and she lost all interest again. These damn ceremonies took too long. The only good news - sometimes they lured out a Klaxosaur or two.

She looked down to her side for a moment, before staring straight ahead into the low-pulled cap of her hat. 081 stood at attention. Way too serious for all of this. But this one did show some promise. Maybe he would be enough to transform twice, even if he was pretty much used up already.

What also had her curious, was how he would taste. She hadn’t had a chance yet to find out about that. The last dozen or so were either burnt or stale, with the odd exception of one who was mild and flowery and who actually lasted pretty long into his third flight, before he clawed at his chest and exploded himself in blue blood before she consumed him.

A pity. She liked calling that one Darling for a while.

Not that he was her real Darling. She had not earned that yet.

The girl noticed how the holograms started to vanish from the observation deck. The ritual was concluded, 081 had been given into her care now and his old regiment would possibly be replaced in a day or so. Zero Two took her hat off and tossed it over her shoulder.

Someone would pick it up, she knew. Or, if she was lucky, she'd lose the damn thing finally. It kept the wind from her horns; made everything feel muffled and dull that way. And while her inhibitor already did a lot of that already, she did not need extra layers on top of that.

Besides. Showing her horns kept folks away from her for the most part. She had no idea how to deal with most people, so she liked to use every small edge she had. Such as the small advantage of being able to have an entire room for herself whenever she wanted, simply by showing her fangs or flashing her horns.

Ignoring those who called out to her, she headed straight to her quarters in the city. Unlike other Parasites, she had always been hosted away from them. As far back as she could remember, they had always isolated her. Kept her locked away, forbade her to interact with anyone. Told her to only ever interface with those they chose for her.

She was tired of that. But it was something she would do, if it allowed her to kill more Klaxosaurs. More of those monsters dead only brought her closer to her goal.

Something smelled. She had lifted her hand and brushed her hair back when she noticed it. Which lead her to pushing her glove back and sniffing her arm. It reeked. The transfusions must be wearing off, if the stench of Klaxosaur stuck to her this strongly. Or maybe she had overdone it on her last mission and some of their cursed blue blood stuck to her still.

 _‘I need a long bath…’_ she thought. _‘The moment I get home, I’ll strip out of these cloths and wash.’_

As she got to her assigned quarters, however, she was greeted by a group of armed guards.

Stepping out from behind them was Doctor Franxx, holding her hat. "Did you forget, Zero Two? I told you two days ago."

She stopped, pulling herself up to her full height. "I do not need to be experimented on."

"Not an experiment. Maintenance."

"Whatever you call it, I'm not interested."

“Come now… you know these are very important for everyone.”

“Important for you, perhaps. I hate them. You know I hate them!” She snarled, her teeth glinting in the sterile fluorescent light of the city around them.

But he was used to her acts, had learned how to read her threats and how to react to them. In this case, he knew he could just ignore her posturing, as she would not be able to get to him through the guards.

Doctor Franxx sighed. "You went straight into a Stampede on your last outing, killing a young Stamen who had only left Garden a year ago. He was healthy. So why would he-"

"I _told_ you why. He was forceful!" She cringed at the mere memory of that sensation. "He did not come to me, he tried to take me. And I..." Her snarl turned into a smile. "I objected."

Franxx shook his head. "Whichever your motivation, it was wasteful. It was also not how you normally do things. I know you have better measure over your emotions. Also, even if you have developed better than any of the Nines ever did - we need to keep your nature in check."

“My nature?” she snarled. “All you need me to do is kill monsters.” She started to shake. “But somehow you keep insisting on scanning and prodding and cutting into me. Over and over – when will that end for me? How many kills will you let me trade in for some peace?” The thought of being touched was enough to make her inhibitor start humming, making her horns vibrate painfully. She clenched her teeth, feeling her fangs rub against one another.

The old man simply stared at her. “So, you won’t come with me to the medical facility now?”

“How about fuck you?” She balled her fists tight enough to feel her nails cut into her palms and flexed her knees into a light crouch.

That was the last she had from this exchange, before someone used a stun gun on her from behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As mentioned in the overview:  
> Persona 4 and Kanji and Naoto in particular are going to be my main focus for my writing. I have readers who have been with me for years, and I hope they can forgive me when I reach out and try to fix another ship that sailed into my habour.
> 
> For the most part, I want to pick up on pieces of world building the anime started with, but then discarded. In his first chapter, as one of many coming examples, I picked up on Zero Two's heightened senses a bit, and I will resume playing with these scattered breadcrumbs, quirks, and hints for a different ending.


	2. Chapter 2

Those hours had dragged on like the bad dream she always, _always_ had prayed it would be. There was no such luck, however. Dreams could never hurt this badly.

Each session of experimentation, ‘Maintenance’, as the Doctor liked to call it, left her hurting in body and mind. Hours filled with different pains.

The draining hurt of her blood leaving her body. The burning of freshly processed blood entering it. The war her body had each time this process was forced upon her. The stabbing of needles and lasers. The intense aching of tissue removal. The sharp shooting of electric stimulation of muscles. The gnawing of her body trying to knit wounds caused back together.

And right alongside those, nearly as exhausting to her, were the pains to her soul. Why were they doing this? Why would they never stop? Why did they make her feel this way? ...when would it end?

As far back as Zero Two could remember, longer than she could remember anything that identified her as _her_ , there had been the instruments, the machines, the bright lights, the straps and clamps holding her in place. There had also been the masked, metallic faceplates, barring her from identifying anyone or finding out if any of them felt anything while they drained her blood, filling her veins with newly processed fluids; if there was empathy or remorse while they cut or shot at her.

When she was younger, she had tried begging. Pleading. Negotiating.

That stopped after she met _Papa_ for the first time and he made the offer that defined her life from that moment on.

Even with that promise she had been given by him and the counsel of APE the girl still tried to avoid these sessions as much as she could. The distant promise of having her wish granted and the dread of the near-by promise of hours of pain could not always weigh out one another evenly.

So, she would hide. She would drag things out. She discreetly managed the growth of her horns and filed them down herself, once she discovered a tool that was strong enough to do so. She kept her moods in check better each passing week, too. But on some days, when she wasn't paying attention, things would go bad. Doctor Franxx jumped her when she let her guard down.

The girl remembered him, from way, way back then already. She also remembered it was him who tried to make her forget about that boy. The first one to talk to her. The first one to hug her. The first one to care about her, no matter who she was. And he cared not because she was a monster. He cared _despite_ her being a monster. As if he had no means of seeing it, as if he had no understanding of it.

And Doctor Franxx wanted to tear that glimmer of kindness away from her. It was something she had burned into her mind. She accepted the man as her only chance of ever reaching her own goals, but she would never trust him, no matter how he styled himself as a father figure of hers.

Zero Two would have thought that in the twelve years since he had taken a personal interest in her, well, that he would run out of ideas. That he would stop trying new ways of causing her anguish.

He surprised her frequently with new, excruciating ways of 'gathering information about her'.

She once watched them delicately remove a whole muscle from her thigh, awake and aware of the raging pain, as always. As she tried to writhe off the operating table, they would peel open the skin, isolate the muscle, remove it fully. Then they left the damn leg open to see what would happen next, proceeded to feed her one drip of substances she didn't know after the next... while measuring and protocolling how her body struggled to fix the damage they made.

Information. Data. Samples. Measurements. She was good for those. Doctor Franxx hung over her like a shadow for most of her early life. Then took her away and handed her off to one group of folks after the next, stuffing her head with knowledge. He said she was special, she was a key, and that he needed her to learn.

So, she learned.

Two things came to her rescue during those intense first two years. The first one was that experiment Code 002 was inhumanly bright, being able to process what she was being taught and applying it in new and complex situations. The other was that she had an eidetic memory.

Show her a thing, and she would do it. Who could claim to have learned reading and writing in a month? She could. Make her recall and copy any task? Done. She could see items, pictures, writing, and draw or copy them in perfect detail a day later, without needed to see the original again.

After her first training session in a mock FRANXX, she fully handled the controls herself. She also extrapolated from there into other units and she had never needed a trainer for any of the new mechs she had been presented with since.

Sadly, once that foundation was there, new experiments, new means of torture were devised.

They fed her conflicting information to see how she would remember it. They traumatised her with images of comfort and pain. They injected things into her neck to flow into her brain while teaching new things. They burnt parts of her brain. They tried to insert devices to measure what was happening in her head. He brilliant intellect and her ability to learn and retain information became a focus of her trials and tests.

She overheard the doctor mutter to himself in those early days of brain testing. That too many physical experiments had trained her body to reject and heal any damage being done - including any mechanical contraptions. That the bio-mechanical nature of her Klaxosaur background interfered or helped.

In the end it was simply like this. Making her remember was easy. Making her forget... Well.

Not long after those tests started, they drained her almost as close to entirely of her blood as they could and replaced it fully for the first time. Her skin turned paler. Cuts and scrapes stopped bleeding blue, offering up red blood instead. They scraped the very marrow from her bones and filled her with that of others.

And her body... adapted. Not easily, not at all. She spent months in raw, raging pain as her body tried to reject the new material. But as more and more human tissues and fluids were added to her own; finally her body gave in and instead of rejecting it started to use it. It accepted the changes and built them into her.

Slowly, over the course of several months, Zero Two turned into a hybrid; a Klaxosapiens with human blood.

Even if that was not what she was paraded about as; quite literally it was the opposite. They said she was a girl who had Klaxosaur blood. Which was not untrue - after all, her body still produced it, even if in much smaller quantities. Her blue blood felt like a last sign of rebellion against what was being done to her during her ‘maintenance’. But it wasn’t the truth, either.

The strange new blood they gave her, not quite human, not quite synthetic, brought the biggest changes to the girl they created in their laboratory. Her healing slowed down dramatically, though it still was much, much faster than that of any human. It did leave her with longer-lasting pain, too. Where the pain used to end when her body repaired the damage, now pains sometimes lingered, like aphysical memory of what had been done to her.

Possibly due to this, Franxx’ experiments started to change yet again. Her body was treated better. Not because he felt anything about her in one way or another. Zero Two was convinced that the old man could not be bothered to know more about her than the data she provided to him.

She was also sure that her more human appearance did not shift his approach. But she could break now. Get _seriously_ hurt. Retain damage for longer. And he did not want to lose his favourite pastime.

These changes also felt like they got her closer to her own goal, even if her fangs and horns reminded her that she was never close enough.

Back in the here and now, the girl lay strapped on and shackled to the operating table; naked and shivering, her body glistening with perspiration. It never was warm in these rooms, but pain and fear made for the right cocktail to force her body into producing pools of cold sweat. Hoarse from screaming, she had resigned herself to anguished grunts and moans by now. ‘ _How much longer?_ ’ she thought to herself. ‘ _How much more till he was satisfied?_ ’.

Her eyes stared unseeing at the metal plating of the ceiling. In her mind, she pictured a snowy landscape. The cold of this room helped forming the image in her mind, as it had for many, many years now. The escape she had created for herself as a child already.

In this world of white, she pictured the colourful swirls of the picture book. The comfort these colours brought her every time she was experimented with carried her forward, minute by minute, hour by hour.

And beside her, if only in her mind, was the boy who had got her out of her prison. For only a day, back all those years ago. But he said he would fly with her again. He said he would come for her. And they were to be married. He had already proposed, she faintly remembered, even if many of these memories were washed out and thinned down.

Around her, machinery was shifted around, and they gathered around her lower abdomen again. Zero Two felt them prod at her genitals now, which generally heralded the final stages of her testing.

 _‘Perverts_ ’. They said it was for her FRANXX piloting, but the girl had to wonder if any of the other female Parasites had to endure this many of these checks. Would a normal human be able to deal with machinery strapped to her, things put into her, measurements of reactions tracked for them? She somehow doubted that anyone would feed a true human as little respect as they had around her.

Zero Two shut her eyes tightly, trying to hold on to the image she just had before her. It would not return to her. That uneasy feeling she always got whenever they got to this part of their routine would not let her keep it. For some reason being probed in this manner excluded thinking of the boy she met that day.

Maybe it had to do with that sexuality thing she had been taught about in secrecy. The girl was familiar with why there were two sexes. Why they had a need before, why it was a matter of survival even. Knowledge that, these days, was considered forbidden.

Zero Two used that knowledge. Even if humans tried hard to forget and would not teach about it, she learned quickly that their bodies still remembered, given the chance. She would kiss every Stamen she went out to fight with. Mainly to find out if they would be compatible, or if they were fuel for her. The few she liked, she had done more with before their third sortie, if only to make sure they would give it their all. It had been a useful find, that. Sexual bonding, Franxx had called it, but had, after explaining the basics to her, made it very clear that APE did not allow such, and there could be severe punishments, even for her, should they find out about her doing that.

The secrecy made things interesting, as all enigmas did. But she found that with those whom she did not like, taking that step made it only clearer that if fodder she perceived them to be, fodder they were. And she did not enjoy it with that type of Stamen, so why bother with it?

Zero Two opened her eyes as she felt machinery being removed from between her legs. Something was unstrapped from across her tummy. The different needled pumping fluids in or out of her body were disconnected.

She heaved a deep sigh of relief. Slowly, the burning in her veins slowed as the liquid fire settled into her body. With each point of ‘data gathering’ being removed, another pain vanished. Another ache dulled. One of the last things to be removed was the special inhibitor, and the stabbing headache it caused ebbed quickly.

One of the assistants stepped beside her with a loaded syringe. In an odd fashion, this was always something she welcomed. It was a muscle relaxer; a thing they pumped into her to keep her awake, but make sure she could not lash out at them. They gave it to her since that one time, when she had saved some of her energy for payback.

Killing that woman had not brought her any joy, release, or even helped ease her anger. She would not do such a thing ever again, injection or no injection. There had been no sense of gratification from it. She was just another faceless drone working her – so her death meant nothing.

As the pain ended, Zero Two drifted off to sleep almost at once, exhausted.

She did not feel hands put her on a medial stretcher.

Did not feel being brought to her room.

Not being placed into her bed.

In the absence of pain, sleep came swiftly; and before long she was soundly asleep herself in the huge, empty apartment assigned to her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you who are new to my writing, please do not expect daily updates. My attention and drive switches between my different stories frequently, and while I have more time to write now than I have had in the last 18 months, this will not be a fast-paced fic with continuous updates. I strongly suggest subscribing if you want to keep in the loop.


	3. Chapter 3

Four days passed.

Four days of nothingness, because that is all the hollow, lifeless city was good for. There was no culture here. No entertainment. Not even the chance of meeting someone in the brightly-lit, dead streets. Whenever someone was wandering from or to their homes, they generally only had left for something that forced them outside. And all they would want was go back and get jacked into those damn machines that robbed them of their life in exchange for immortality.

Zero Two would have been much more at home on the hangar deck. At least there, real people worked. And while, certainly, they, too, wore their faces covered and often ignored her... they were more than static set pieces of equilibrium; more than just a withered and naked existence.

She would wake up in the bright, sterile surroundings. Step into the disinfectant spray that had to serve as a bathroom. It staved up her own scent to some degree, even if not as well as water and scented soaps would.

Not needing to eat, the girl skipped the offered nutrients. They were passable, but she knew how they were mostly fit to the bodies of Adults. And she did not want to be akin to them in any form. She needed to be _human_ , not... whatever they had become now.

She realised she had slept most of her first day. Days two and three fund her exploring the city, searching without much hope to find something, anything, that could make this place unique.

There was nothing. All Plantations had been built based on the same blueprint; and with Adults being the mindless containers of immortal selves, nothing ever changed. She wouldn’t find any lost items on the streets, no gardens, no refuse even.

When she was still with the Nines, fighting on the front lines, they would find the ruins of abandoned cities now and again. Bereft of inhabitants and life as those were… they felt more alive than the streets bathed in golden light she could find around here.

Humans, Zero Two decided back then, had given up. Their peak was their downfall. The last creative person, seeking betterment for humanity, was the sadist who kept inventing new means of abusing her. But for all his flaws… at least he was doing something.

With eternity at their fingertips, humanity had stopped striving. No new sciences were birthed. No great discoveries made in laboratories. No art, no philosophy, no sense of wonder.

It robbed them of their minds and souls and they embraced the venom as if it were sweetest honey.

Yesterday they had stopped her excursion into the city as she tried to sneak into the hangar. While she kept her S-Class privileges, they still did not trust her around their precious pilots. Her nickname of Partner Killer, while it amused her, had made the rounds… and the many generic Hachi’s and Nana’s of the different plantations tried to isolate her as much as they could.

This is why, as she slipped into her casual uniform the next day and tried to leave her assigned quarters, Zero Two found they had posted guards. _Of course, they had_.

"Halt. Have you been given an order to leave your quarters?"

She shrugged. "Hachi said he needed to see me. I don't ask questions."

The guards exchanged looks, then the one who had first addressed her turned to her. "We will check in with Hachi then."

One of the armed guards stepped in front of her, the other behind her. She immediately felt crowded by how close they stood. She made a face. "Can you maybe give me some room to walk? I am about to kick one of you."

While Zero Two had not exactly meant it as a threat - people should _know_ when she did - both men gave her a bit more room hurriedly. Or women. Who could tell with them, anyhow? It was all the same.

They walked through amber-lit corridors in silence. Now and again a great open space gave them a view of the eternal night of the city; the forced darkness of the enclosure of the Plantation fought with what mimicked old city lights. She had seen images of cities in old books, and somehow those pictures had looked more alive than this.

As they got to the elevator, Zero Two finally had enough. She needed to stretch her legs a bit.

"Thank you," she smiled grimly at the guards, "but now I need to take a small detour."

With that, she vaulted herself off the lift’s docking platform, fell safely onto the level below, and started to run. She had no set goal in mind, but each Plantation being of the same design, and each city in each Plantation being dead since its finalisation, she knew the layout would be one single, unchanged thing. This street would loop back around if she stayed on it, so she ran towards a wall, used it to give herself a push, turned to catch a lamp post, pulled herself up, and jumped from there up onto the next street over.

She doubled back to the direction she had come from with a grim smile. She could hear her guards trying to still catch up running past her on the lower level, shouting for her to stop. Well, they wouldn’t catch her. Not today.

Her body had a few days to absorb her new blood and the burning had stopped yesterday. It allowed her to push herself more, run faster, breathe deeper.

Her communicator beeped and she had a good feeling she knew who it would be. Lifting her wrist, she flicked her gaze at the calling ID. It _was_ this Plantation's Hachi up in the Defence Control room

She took the call, looking ahead of her. "Good morning Hachi," she trilled with thickly fakes happiness.

"Code 002," he said gravely, "I have been informed you have gone AWOL after pretending to be coming to see me."

"Oh, you know," she said, her smile growing, "just needed a quick morning run. Parasites do need to be fit in body and mind after all."

"You need to return to your quarters. We are not going to lock you in as a sign of our respect to Doctor Franxx and your standing within APE, but-"

"Can't do that, Hachi-san. I need to meet with my Stamen today."

She did not need to look at her communicator to see the confusion in his face; his voice carried it clearly. "There are no planned sorties and it has been quiet." She knew it was a lie, too. Every single appointed Hachi she had met was a terrible liar, though most of them wouldn’t even try.

Zero Two's smile dried up and she lifted her communicator in front of her face to stare at the man while she resumed running. "He and I need to meet and synchronise, Hachi. Trust me when I say: You do not want me to jump into a FRANXX with him unprepared."

She dropped her arm, using it to pump as she resumed running, waiting for his confirmation. He would confirm, she knew, because if nothing else, the respect everyone had for Doctor Franxx would carry her own standing.

"Meet Nana in the briefing room, Code 002. I will confer with Doctor Franxx and Code 081."

She replied with a toothy smile. "I'm on my way now." 

* * *

_The briefing room had welcomed her earlier with an annoyed Nana and the rest of Squad 73, alongside her own Stamen._

_"So good of you all to invite me," she commented drily before standing in the back of the room with her back to the railing there._

_"Doctor Franxx suggested you would need a whole week to recover after your maintenance," Nana said mildly, "but I am glad to see you are feeling so much better already to take a short run."_

_Zero Two didn't smile._

_The rest of the meeting turned out to be interesting. A large herd of Klaxosaurs was going to intersect with this Plantation’s course, so the squadron was being readied to patrol in a large swath around the base. _

_The girl announced that she and her Stamen would join as needed and she informed him to get ready before leaving to get into her own combat gear._

Those had been the last two hours of her day. Now she stood beside her newly assigned Parasite Partner; wishing she had remembered to pick up something sweet.

"You understand that your actions reflect on me as well, don't you?"

Zero Two gave the tall man beside her a casual glance. "081, riding with me will be all your dreams come true as a Stamen. You really don't need to think much about anything else. I will draw out what we need for today. If you manage to link, that is."

So far, this had been the longest exchange the two of them had in the week they had known one another. Standing side-by-side on the platform that would rise them to _Strelizia_ , they had mostly kept themselves to silence.

"I have linked with all my previous Pistils easily."

At this she did turn her head fully to look up at him. It had not sounded boastful; indeed, his voice stayed very even as he said it. But she still felt mild annoyance. "And all were happy with your performance?"

When he turned to face her, there was no humour in his expression. "Doctor Franxx told me about you, Code 002. About how you believe you should have a name. About how you consume those who you personally deem are too weak." He faced forward as the platform reached their FRANXX. "I am not weak."

With that, he stepped off the platform and turned towards entering Strelizia’s cockpit.

Zero Two huffed and clenched her teeth together. He would be one of those by-the-rules guys, she could feel it. Most of them tasted terrible. Stale, dusty, slightly corrosive. She felt saliva run to her mouth just at the thought of how it would linger on her tongue in an unpleasant manner.

But this was a good thing. She would get things over with quickly. He might not even make it past the first sortie, seeing how he was already mostly grey. Whichever turn this would take, however, she needed to make sure her timing was right.

The plan had been to have the squad fan out and patrol, with her as a backup to only join in if there was an emergency. They had told her to hang back, plainly spoken.

Which just wasn't bloody likely. Zero Two was nobody's mere _backup_. Her job was clear: Kill Klaxosaurs, as many as she could, until she would get her reward. She had battled several years on the front lines with the Nines, she had killed Klaxosaurs of sizes most of these guys would think are made up. She had stood by herself in a wave of a hundred of these beasts and held her ground.

Backup, indeed. Keeping a mere Plantation safe, hell, she could do that on her own.

This left her with that awkward bonding time she had with each new Stamen.

Her normal approach of tasting them, confusing them, and then just taking over from them - generally it worked. And as every Stamen was simply a means to reaching peak ability in combat, well. She could play with them for a while before then.

As she entered the cockpit, her pilot already was seated and waiting for her. She strolled in casually, taking in the cockpit as she did. "081? Are you okay with being held back as a backup?"

"We have never linked before. It would be absurd to build us fully into the planning of any sortie right now." He rose and stepped to the side of her own consoles, offering her his hand to help her get situated.

This made her smirk. "Oh, a gentleman." She took his hand and pulled him in close for a moment, resting her horns on his chest as she inhaled against him.

There wasn't much to go by, really. The sterile scent of their parasite suit, a hint of soap - nothing else. Her horns also did not pick up anything substantial, though purely biological bodies would only really send anything via their bones and she missed to touch anything useful.

He grabbed her shoulders and glanced down at her. "Hey! You okay?"

"I'm okay," the girl mumbled and flashed him a brief smile, "I've slept too long over the last few days." If her excuse was a bad one, he didn't much comment on it. "Let's park outside and watch the show."

She crawled into position and felt him get situated behind her. "If you say so. I'm ready, just let me know when."

She nodded and focused on the next steps. For him it would be relatively simple. The heavy lifting was on the Pistil in all of this. Both in linking into the mech, as well as trying to invite in the Pistil.

First things first. Zero Two slipped her feet into the back stirrups and felt the soles of her feet tingle lightly with the connection. Her hands gripped into the electrodes that would interface with her gloves. Sensors reached out and hooked into a thousand points of contact throughout her suit. The main contact was nestled between her thighs, riding on a high point of what could generously be called her 'seat' in this thing. Franxx was a _definitive_ pervert.

She turned to look over her shoulder. "Let's go. I only want to move into a waiting position outside, then I need to disconnect for a bit, so be ready for that." As she turned to face back forwward, the hood of her suit moved forward and shut closed.

"This isn't playtime, 002." He was disgruntled, and she didn't much mind it. They did not yet need to dive deeply. Not yet.

She felt him grasp the handles of her suit, thus closing the circuit of the mech's controls. 'Any moment now...'

Zero Two gritted her teeth shut as she felt him rush forward. He had not even asked if she was ready, just rushed it. She _hated_ that. This only confirmed he would taste terrible.

Strelizia powered up half-way and remained in basic operation mode.

The intercom crackled. "Code 002, are you alright? Your connection is not stable."

Through her grinding teeth she replied. "Fine here. We will re-link after we take position outside."

As she suggested, they took up position on one of the outside walls of the Plantation and she kicked him out. She smirked at the grunt of disapproval behind her at being unlinked this abruptly.

The girl slipped out of her seat and stretched. "Let's have a peek, okay?" She gave 081 no second glance as she popped open the hatch.

Outside, in the distance, a few specks of rising dust plumes announced where the other units were. They had started their patrol a while ago, and some seismic monitoring suggested that Klaxosaurs should still be headed towards them. So far, however, she could neither smell any, nor had scans shown any.

She knelt in the open port and watched the horizon. The briefing, short as it was, informative enough. A herd indicated a group of five to twenty, large groups could range up to fifty. This meant if she was quick enough, she could rush through a good number of kills this time around.

The one unknown factor she cared about, as generally was the case, was her new Stamen. He had remained inside, running checks on the mech; reading up on notes; listening to the radio chatter of his former colleagues.

Like most Parasites, he did not seem care much for his group one way or the other; and that he had been selected to ride with her now had apparently not impacted him. This was so common, that Zero Two did not even expect wit or banter anymore these days. Sometimes a Nana surprised her, but most of the time she dealt with blank, emotionless slates, bereft of any kind of personality.

She wondered when this happened to them. Most of the Nines and those who had come before them showed emotion, too.

The boy from way back then had shown all kinds of emotions she herself knew and felt and had never lost.

Would he have lost them?

Each new Plantation she visited as Doctor Franxx toured her from Stamen to Stamen was a quest for her. Could she find him? Could she find anything that reminded her of her Darling?

She had walked amongst the squadron earlier, making sure she could get a decent nose full of each of their scents. As she had grown to expect... nothing came to mind around them.

Just as she was pondering scents and smelling for him, however, her keen nose picked up something else.

Raw, metallic, earthen, inorganic. She stood and inhaled deeply. There was no mistaking that scent in her mind; it was the same that would cling to her after some weeks without maintenance.

She turned and walked back into the cockpit. "Klaxosaurs. They will be here soon."

081 looked up in confusion. "Central has not mentioned anything yet., neither have the squad."

Zero Two smiled a large, toothy smile. "Trust me. They are about to make an entrance."

He turned off some displays and sat straight in his seat. "Well, let's get ready then."

"Before we do, there's something I still need to do to make sure we can properly sync up."

He lifted his head from his communicator, about to comment or ask a question, as she had already bridged the gap between them. Pressing one knee onto his leg for balance and holding on with one hand to his arm, she leaned in, her other hand wrapped around his neck. Ignoring the startled sound he made, she took him in a kiss.

She did not deepen it. The taste of age was thick on him already; a taste of a body starting to fail after too many sorties. Be a Parasite for a few years and your body would start to age rapidly, leaving the bright mind of a teen inside the suffering shell of an elder. To confirm her suspicion, she gently suckled his lower lip as she pulled away from him.

There was no doubt in her mind. No matter how strong he was in spirit, if he managed a second sortie it would be a surprise to her. She gave him a small smile and gently said, "Thank you."

As she wiped her lips on the back of her gloved hand, she also had to admit that it wasn’t _him_ , either, much to her disappointment. How many would she kiss before she found the boy who was her Prince; her _Darling_?

"Wh-What was that for?" a stunned Code 081 asked as she pulled away.

Zero Two smiled a bit broader. "This will help us link. Trust me. I have done these countless times and it always boosts the numbers. We will be much more strongly connected. But, let's keep this as secret, mhm? It’s a special thing."

As she climbed back into her own position, she heard the echo of a memory in her mind. _'A parting kiss to the Stamen? Well...There are no rules against that, at least to my knowledge. But I'd not go running to_ Papa _with the idea, Zero Two.'_ She had asked Franxx if getting a taste of her Stamen in this manner was a problem, but he seemed to like the idea and was always curious how it played out for her. It was he who found it did boost her numbers, and it was he who told her, in not so many words, that it might be beneficial for her linking; indeed, for any Parasite pair's linking.

He also mentioned it was dangerously close to degenerate knowledge APE opposed, so she did her best to keep it hushed.

When she was slotted in and felt the tingle of the different points of connection, she looked over her shoulder. 081 still sat lightly stunned in his seat, touching his lips with a bemused expression. She unhooked the handles on her thighs and wiggled her butt at him. "Hey, wake up! It's time to go."

He started, then reached for the grips at once. "Sorry, I ... I was distracted for some reason."

"No time to be distracted," she grinned before turning around, drooping her head, "we're off to hunt!"

This time, as she pulled his consciousness in, their levels shot up at once. He offered no resistance and the control he had previously attempted to impose on her vanished. The kiss clearly had kicked his adaptability into high gear, while Zero Two had long since learned how to welcome in any Stamen. After the first few dozen random links she had learned to relax and just let that part of her job happen to her.

Strelizia morphed into mobility, its static, expressionless face waiting for their first actions.

Franxx had claimed that, in time, and with the right partner, her mechanical weapon would take on the facial features of its Pistil, even allowing for complex emotions to be shown. So far it was just as still and static as any other FRANXX she had ever seen. The few custom ones she had seen or ridden in her time also did not show any reflection of their Pistil. Maybe he had been trying to joke?

She did feel the sensors of her machine take over her senses. She lost some, like her sense of smell and taste, except for the small part of hers that was linked to her Stamen. Anything else no longer seemed to carry a scent from now on. The taste of their kiss lingered, as it always did, but with the change of her information input, she could ignore him if she chose.

The payoff was in what she _gained_.

Having the sensor input of two dozen cameras, ten microphones, and countless shock detectors from all across her FRANXX feed into her directly let her 'see', 'hear', even ‘feel’ clearer, sharper, and deeper than normal. While maybe some part of that was still available to her in Stampede mode, being in FRANXX mode it was much, much richer still. The tunnel vision that came with fighting the strains and pains of Stampede did not weigh on her, and if her body had not been paralysed for the interface she would have laughed in joy every time her experience expanded in this manner.

Feeling the still-confused ball of emotion of her Stamen in the back of her mind, she rushed into battle, dragging Code 081 with her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies to anyone who had dreamed of Zero Two and Hiro being these pure, sweet teens who saved themselves for one another.
> 
> The combination of the lyrics in the intro song "Kiss of Death", along with her being quite clearly knowledgeable about a number of things lead to my interpretation of these matters.


	4. Chapter 4

"Codes 284, 923, 951, 057, 286, and 002 have returned safely. Codes 637, 821, 116 and 081 are currently at the infirmary, being treated." There was a slight tremble in the voice of Nana as she read out the statistic to Hachi. She had not expected this sortie to be anything other than a reconnaissance mission, so that they had suffered any injuries at all bothered her. None of these Children had had any previous health concerns, and now two Pistils and two Stamen were being treated.

He nodded, his arms crossed. "Any severe injuries?"

"Nothing that won't be treated within the next few hours. The worst appears to be 821, who appeared to have suffered some electric burns when her FRANXX was tackled to the ground during the rushing of Klaxosaurs. That FRANXX was carried back by 637 and 284."

He nodded again. His eyes weren't on his tactical Partner, and she knew he was reviewing several monitors besides the one that held their video conference. In an off-handed manner he asked, “081, I assume, suffered the same fate all of Code 002’s previous Stamen?”

She shook her head. “He was mostly fine, it seemed. He did need help exciting the FRANXX, and it appears his system is in shock. His yellow blood cells are markedly higher than before, however.”

“Technically,” Hachi said gently, “081 is no longer a member of Squad 73. Worrying about him is pointless now.”

She nodded quietly. _Technically_ , that was correct. _Emotionally_ … well, as much emotion as she had for anyone, really; but he was still a Child. Even if, at twenty-five, he was one of the oldest she had ever been in contact with.

Her partner pulled her attention back to the meeting by clearing his throat. "Speaking of those two. Code 002 was correct in her analysis, Nana. There are large tremors underground, pointing towards a sizeable Klaxosaur headed our way. Making sure the squad returned was the right call." She saw him uncross his arms and touch some panels that did not show to her, but a split screen showed a map with potential movement patterns. a small area of blue crosses showed the battle her children had just returned from. blue arrows showed the direction they all turned after half their number had fallen. "Nothing in this group had been bigger than a Mohorovičić-class," Hachi narrated the map. Then a series if circles appeared, pointing at a trajectory passing behind the plantation and towards the fuelling station they left three weeks prior. "And this appears to be a Richter-class, burrowed underground. After 002 reported 'knowing' that there was more than what she noticed, we requested satellite images of the surrounding area. We found a newly created canyon which is very slowly expanding from the east."

Nana shook her head slowly. "How deep is this Richter-class, that we did not detect it sooner?"

Hachi shrugged. "It is a Richter-class, making it smaller than a Gutenberg-class. Keeping in mind the relatively small size of a Klaxosaur of that class, and the slow movement it seems to have, and the fact that we did not scan out far enough… it was possible for us to miss it. What worries me, is that all the Mohorovičić that ran from this last battle seem to be returning to this one."

"We have seen such behaviour before," Nana nodded, "Sometimes they are fodder for the larger one; sometimes they use them to heal up."

Hachi crossed his arms again. "And we will see which one this will play out to be." The map vanished, and Nana received the notification that the data was being loaded to the briefing room. "We will meet with the squadron in two hours. Have them rest until then. You and I should rest up as well."

"Yes. See you in two hours, Hachi."

The screen went into its normal display of the APE logo and Nana rose from her seat to head to her room. On her way, she recorded the message to be sent to all pilots, requested a status update of the medical staff in 90 minutes, and requested Doctor Franxx to review the projection they had created for the new Richter-class sighting. She had been hesitant at first to include him into their processes, but as Hachi had pointed out yesterday - Franxx was a member of APE, and if he was going to be bringing his pet Pistil here, he could work for the sacrifice her squadron made.

She reached her room just as all messaging was sent and dropped into her bed with a small huff. Maybe having Franxx and Code 002 here would be beneficial to them in the coming fight. Though they already had wounded, and she knew she and Hachi were going to be replaced with a new command team and a new team of Parasites soon enough. That was how things were. They raised Children. They helped train them. Then they would command them for a few years, until they were switched out with a new group, to start all over again.

She drifted off to dreamless sleep, thinking of the many she had seen live long enough to give their blood for _Papa_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I added a new classification of Klaxosaur, and I may add another few, just to keep things a bit easier to follow. All Classifications used in canon are scientists; all specialised in the sciences of the earth's inner core, seismic activity, tectonic movements, and so on.
> 
> As a reminder, in canon we have:  
> Conrad-class, small Klaxosaurs. Even smaller than a FRANXX.  
> Mohorovičić-class, medium-sized. Can pose a serious threat to the plantations if left unattended but otherwise harmless.  
> Gutenberg-class, large-sized. Often siege weapons and capable of destroying plantations.  
> Super Lehmann-class, gargantuan. Can rival Plantations in size.
> 
> Staying in the theme of scientists, I am adding:  
> Dziewoński-class, small-to-medium-sized. Close to a FRANXX in size and mobility. Only become a problem to FRANXX in larger swarms.  
> Richter-class, medium-to-large-sized. about twice as large or powerful than a FRANXX. While not a threat to Plantations, they are capable of severely damaging them or wiping out smaller installations.  
> Bullen-class, very large-sized. While smaller than a Super Lehmann-class, they are dangerous and have been seen rendering Plantations inoperable without destroying them fully.


	5. Chapter 5

The communicator on her wrist beeped. She ignored it.

Zero Two lay sprawled on the covers of her bed, naked. Her body felt pleasantly heavy after the sortie earlier in the day, even though she felt riddled with aches and pains at the same time. While it was a good workout for body and mind to be connected to these machines, it always came with a hefty cost for the Pistil. Being pulled into the machine and having to bridge the Stamen at the same time was already hard work. Doing so when the Stamen was not fully there or wasn’t working with her made things even more tricky.

‘ _Then again_ ,’ she thought with a small smile, ‘ _it does make things so much easier when the Stamen is just_ there _and lets me do the real work_.’

081 had survived, and without taking too hard of a beating. He didn’t even bleed when she pulled him out of the cockpit back at the Plantation. The pink-haired girl mused if the state of relaxation of a Stamen played a part in how much or how little they ended up hurt. 081 had been one of the guys who relaxed after her kiss; was one of the ones she could pull in easily and even take some control from him here and there without too much protest.

Not all her Stamen had surrendered that easily, but the ones who did often were after being confused by the kiss. Their mind not being fully there allowed her to retain more of the mobility for herself and having all the information right at hand also meant she could react much faster than most Stamen could.

At first, she had thought that being the conduit for a FRANXX would be like working out, and her system would slowly get used to the strain. And, she had to admit, being part of a properly combined team with a Parasite Partner helped negate a lot of the hurting. Joined with a partner, she could let go of some of her tension and allow control to the Stamen. Her understanding was, that most Pistils did just that, surrendering all direct control, often even being frozen in place and unable to directly take control.

Zero Two thought that was foolish and risky. Two pilots were better than one, unless one pilot was as good as at least two.

The whole being sore-bit got on her nerves. All along her spine she felt the slow throbbing of the connection points the FRANXX had with her through her Parasite suit. The soles of her feet and the palms of her hands were prickly pins and needles. She felt countless tiny nettle stings along the front and back of her torso. The mild headache emanating from her horns lingered still, and sometimes would all day.

Depending on how skilled or unskilled her Stamen was, she had hurt herself in the past as well, before she learned she could wrench some control away from them as needed. The demanding ones, the Stamen who thought their job was to take over the Pistil and dominate them through their actions… those were the dangerous ones. And from what she had learned, with a regular Pistil this was even encouraged behaviour for the most part.

She, however, was not like the other girls. Used to being in control amongst the Nines, she had struggled to learn being the one who collects the mind of a Stamen and guides them inside of her – with all the physical reactions that could cause. The thought made her squirm on her bed for a moment.

For the most part, linking up was safe enough, even with the more forceful boys. Overall, the pink-haired girl had never suffered more at the hands of a Stamen than she had when fighting on her own. That wasn’t to say it was a cake walk. The first hour after any flight where anything but comfortable; even less so when they housed her in the inner cities, where the best she could get was a soft bed and an antiseptic spray. "I really would like a bath," she sighed before closing her eyes.

The only offset for the hard work that was being the conduit for the FRANNX, was what happened during the connection with most Stamen when they joined with her to pilot. The pleasant tingle in her lower tummy, between her thighs, and all over her breasts. The feeling of being stirred up from the inside with pleasant feelings. Zero Two sometimes felt similar when she first kissed a Stamen before joining up, too. Something about linking made her want to keep doing it, even though it exhausted her so much.

Sometimes the feelings in her lower abdomen also came with an explosion of _recognising_ her partner in a deeper way… or feeling _connected_ with him throughout her whole body. A heightened sense of connection that had made her back arch and her often locked-shut jaw relax enough for a sigh or a moan of pleasure - although, those had been rare. They had generally only come to be with the handful of Stamen she had called 'darling' in the past. Our of the Stamen that triggered any response on linking, most of those only triggered the physical response, if that much. Those Stamen who tried to rush in, overpower and take her, they quickly turned the pleasant feeling into something she disliked thinking about. They also were the ones she did not mind burning up on the first ride as much as maybe some others.

Her wrist-bound communicator beeped again. She ignored it again. If there had been any news about the Klaxosaur she told them to find, Hachi would have just opened the all-call. She was certain he would, because she knew how the operations commands of all Plantations functioned. Any ‘Hachi’ and ‘Nana’ on any plantation were pretty much copies of one another as well. Maybe not in looks, but all had the same 'name' - the code given to them by APE generally being changed while they were assigned to overseeing Parasites.

So long as it wasn't either of them, she'd simply not bother. Besides, they owed her big time. If not for her own sortie, this Plantation would be in some serious trouble right now. Three hurt Pistils could spell the destruction of any Planation, especially one without a backup team of Parasites in training.

That the Pistils were the ones hurt first and often worse was never a surprise to her. The strain on the body of a Pistil was much higher than that on the body of any Stamen. The Parasite suit with its connections directly to the nervous system of the girl interfacing with the FRANXX would translate any damage received as pain. Too much damage to a FRANXX meant too much pain to bear for the girl. In cases where part of the mechanical weapon’s parts got torn off, girls had suffered similar tears on their own body as well. Rip a FRANXX arm off and chances are the girl who operated it needs a few torn muscles re-attached in the medical facility.

But even without such drastic injuries, just operating the damn things was gruelling. Zero Two frowned at the stiffness of her aching body and stretched out again, yawning loudly until her jaw creaked, and tears sprang into her eyes. The girl felt her knotted muscles protest as she pushed her fists away from her body; stretched her calves out as she stretched out her legs. She let her arms and legs drop as her yawn ended in a squeak, remaining spread-eagle on the bed.

Her mood was a lot better than right after exiting _Strelizia_ had been. She had taken some water, not really feeling hungry or thirsty. She didn't need either food or drink, but she found drinking something after a fight refreshed her.

What she _really_ would like right now, however, was something sweet.

Now and again she managed to convince someone to give her a treat, but she was terrible at rationing herself. The moment she found something sweet, she had the urge to consume all of it. Especially if she had been feeling stressed, or drained, or just had _one of these days_. Which, she mused as she licked her lips, was most days. Being the world's most renown scientist’s hobby horse came with too much poking and prodding and experimenting.

But she had done so well on that sortie, damnit. She killed a lot again, meaning she was moving closer to her goal, closer to being-

Her communicator flickered to life with a direct broadcast and she brought her arm before her face to check who had triggered the automatic activation.

"Code 002, I have been trying to contact you for ten minutes! Don't ignore when you get contacted!" The leader of the squadron glared at her from the holographic window of the communicator.

Zero Two smiled sweetly at the girl's face in return to her upset. "I'm happy to see you look so energetic, 116. You didn’t look so hot when they pulled you out of that FRANXX."

"Very funny, 002. Hachi and Nana have called for a briefing in 20 minutes. You'll have to run at this point to make it on time."

"Can't," the nude girl replied simply.

The girl on the other side looked puzzled. "Why can you not join the briefing?"

"It's really simple. I'm tired." She turned her shoulder, letting her elbow hit the bed as she turned her head to face the communicator.

The other girl seemed at a loss how to respond to that. She blinked, then frowned slightly, then her face returned to its serious, neutral state. "As the leader of Squadron 73, I insist you attend. You will be deployed with us again, and I want to make sure you have the same information we do."

"Someone can fill me in later." Zero Two let her arm drop at her side, causing the communicator to show her bare hips to the other girl. "Or I will ask for a video connection or something."

"You... you are naked!"

Zero Two flashed her ceiling a toothy smile. Anger and outrage came easily to Parasites, emotionally stunted even though most of them were. Drawing anything but that out of one of them was a rare treat. "You bet. This is so much more comfortable after a few hours in a FRANXX."

There was silence from the other end, and the girl turned her head to look past her breast to the communicator. The other girl seemed to fight her impulses and tuck away her emotions. A pity, really. The flare of sentiment was brief and dying already again. When the squad leader spoke again, her voice was cool and controlled once more.

"Code 002. I require you to attend the meeting in, now, fifteen minutes. This was your first sortie with us and I will have a report from you on what you managed to find out during it."

Zero Two lifted her arm again and stared blankly at the other girl. "Sorry, but I just don't feel like it." 116 tried to interject and she simply talked over the other girl. "I simply don't respect you enough to really give a damn. Your leadership was sloppy, you took too long to make the needed calls, and by dragging a clipped FRANXX back, you got yourself and others injured. Maybe you'll wise up some day, maybe you'll get your act together, who knows. Till then, I'll just wait to hear from Hachi or Nana."

At the mention of the two in charge of the defence of this Plantation, the other girl's eyes darted to one side. ' _Ah_ ,' Zero Two thought, ' _they are listening in. So, any moment now_ -'

The intercom changed, now showing Nana. "I thought having 116 call you would be the friendlier option, Code 002."

The door to her apartment slid open and four security guards walked in unannounced. The girl sighed, sitting her nude form up.

"You will attend this meeting,” Nana continued, “one way or another. Now, get dressed."

"Fine, fine. I'm on my way up." She gave her guards a half-hearted smile and went to grab her uniform.

The call on her wrist did not disconnect, instead switching from Nana back to 116.

"Did you need anything else?" Zero Two asked while pulling on her underwear.

"You know the rumours about you? That you consume your Stamen?"

Fastening her bra, the pink-haired girl shook her head slightly. "If you are worried for your former squad member, Code 116," she said quietly, "then it's already too late for that now." She pulled her pantyhose up and lifted her arm to look at the other Pistil. "081 belongs to me now. He is mine. I will use him as I must to do what I am tasked to do."

As the pink-haired girl dropped her hand to pull up her one-piece uniform top-and-skirt, she heard the other girl reply once more. "I heard you murder them."

Narrowing her turquoise eyes, feeling her inhibitor kick in and humming as it put pressure on her horns, Zero Two pulled her belt close around her waist before lifting her arm for one final reply. "I don't _murder_ anything but Klaxosaurs. I may use Stamen and make them give me everything they have, but I do that to fulfill my duty as a Parasite, 116. I have never _murdered_ anything but those monsters. A weak Stamen might die while we fight, but that is what happens to the weak. They die."

She disconnected the call, feeling her inhibitor squeeze against her horns even more agonisingly. She gritted her teeth, fangs rubbing against fangs.

' _The weak die,_ ' she thought bitterly as she fell in with her guards and left the apartment.

' _I'll never be that weak._ '

' _I'll never be too weak -_ ever _\- again._ '

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, decided on my direction for the next few. I'll continue writing on this as time allows exclusively until I get Zero Two to Plantation 13 / the start of the Anime. After that, I'll need to give my poor Persona readers their next chapter for Distance Formula.


	6. Chapter 6

Doctor Franxx leaned back in his padded chair in the temporary office he had moved himself into on Plantation 73. His remaining left eye unfocussed, unseeing, while he ignored the transmission of the camera that served as his right eye. Since he had arrived here, he had not directly processed any data that came from the experimentation of Code 002, nor had he really paid any attention to the other projects. They moved along, mostly without him having to directly control things. He only needed to poke at the reports his assistants submitted here and there. Little that was being done right now under the umbrella of the APE Defence Research needed him directly. He had spent a few years training up his direct assistants to this point, where he could simply start a project and have them let it click along until results started showing. It was not the most exciting of ways to do science.

Doctor Franxx wasn't precisely _bored_. If he wanted to, he could easily tap into any of the currently running processes and take over. He had made sure to stay invested enough into each of these to be able to - but his main interest lay several hours flight East of where Plantation 73 was currently waiting for a possible Klaxosaur attack. He had been building up to reuniting two of his experiments for months at this point, and one of them was just about ready for the next step.

Sitting up straight once more, he found himself faced with the latest report of this one unusual specimen. He had been much of his focus in all of this, aside from Code 002. If the results turned out promising after all, then gathering that remaining blue blood of hers for the past few sessions to decode and analyse may need to be sped up a bit. He might even get her back from APE. She had been of greater value to him in a lab, than hooked into a FRANXX.

The old man shook his head and resumed scrolling through the data sent to him this morning. Code 016, assigned to Plantation 13, had recently passed the last few training sessions and was gearing up to be assigned to his defence location.

Franxx had been waiting for over 10 years for this moment. Planning and shaping Children who would generally be removed; pruned for having undesirable behaviour, genetics, or worldviews. He had argued that their doctrines and absolute control over the Children may be hindering their performance. If some gender-impacting hormones were the cornerstone of FRANXX piloting, then would a normal, natural development into puberty, without the artificial control of chemicals and structured norms prove to give to a more reliable, a more durable and sturdier team? Maybe even Parasites which would turn out hardier, less prone to disease and rapid ageing?

He flipped through the chart of the remaining 10 Parasites from this stock of what he had dubbed Project _Time of Spring_. They had been the third crop of such Children already, and the first two teams had not lived up to their promise. He was convinced that the problem had been both a mixture of the Children selected, as well as the Nana and Hachi that had been assigned to them. For this crop, he had moved a lot more pieces than he normally did, but this one had the potential to maybe even unlock Code 002.

' _Zero Two_ ,’ he tried to remind himself again, ' _she likes being called Zero Two; treats it as if it were a proper name._ ' He smirked. Not that it mattered too much to him. She had never said where she got that idea into her head, but she was fiercely protective of it and would sometimes even refuse to cooperate unless she was being addressed in this strange fashion. It had taken some coaching for the medical team that trekked around with her. He needed to make sure they would remember the 'name' over her properly assigned designation.

His eye moved along the files of the Children he had so carefully set aside. ' _So many reasons to Prune in the future Plantation 13..._ '

An overweight boy. Allowing these children to eat however they wished worked with normal Parasites, but with this lot... It seems that consumption of food would need to be regulated differently, if they were to proceed into the next stages with other Children like them.

A boy and a girl with glasses each. They would have had correctional surgery by now, but both had requested to not undergo it, each citing a different reason. Normally, this was out of the question, but he had given them special treatment.

A hot-headed boy. An equally hot-headed girl. He smirked, when he saw they had been assigned to pilot together. It should prove interesting to see if they can even navigate a FRANXX under that condition. And if they could, what would their performance be like? He added his thoughts to their files with a pleased smile.

A girl who seemed too emotionally available. Her file noted frequent emotional instability, often crying for the fate of others. Another interesting case to monitor, especially as repeat treatment with Elixir seemed to weaken emotional reactions in other Children.

A girl with a deeply traditional view of gender. He wondered briefly how she had picked that up, as the Garden discouraged thinking about different genders by the Children in any form. ' _Maybe free access to the books in Garden had shaped something within her..._ ' He made a note to her file to check into this later.

An overly eager girl. In the past he was worried she could grow into a fanatic, but she seemed to have remained fairly independent in her thinking. She was serious to the core, however, and fiercely protecting of her friends. "Oh?" He tilted his head in interest. She had been selected as squadron leader, it seemed. A good choice.

The one boy who had come out of all of this was as closest to perfect Parasite was the biggest surprise to him. He was from the same group at Garden, but he had nearly been pruned at a young age. He had taken the Elixir and after that it seemed he had the same emotional stunting that most normal Parasites went through. He wrote more notes. Maybe the Elixir should be withheld from all children of the next crop for the Project entirely.

And, of course, there was Code 016 himself. The most expensive of the group, truth be told. He had spent so much time with the many different procedures the boy had needed leading up to today.

The Doctor frowned at the digital chart of the boy.

Ever since he interfaced with Cod- with _Zero Two_ directly, his aptitude started to drop. His yellow blood cell count, the artificial bone marrow he had been treated with since he was a young, dropped off. It was almost as if his body metabolised the Elixir. It degraded at an alarming rate within him, and they had yet to find out why.

Still, he had managed to bring him through round after round of Pruning. Being able to point out that the cellular exhaustion which triggered advanced ageing in Parasites seemed to not happen to him, or at a very delayed time scale, bought him time again and again. It had allowed Franxx to keep pushing to have him be developed and examined, even though the boy's interfacing scores kept dropping.

When his gaze fell upon most recent interfacing report, he jumped to his feet with an oath. The kid had failed the last _four_ trials and was one step from being Pruned. Cursing to himself, Doctor Franxx grabbed his cane and stormed from the office; headed towards the command room. He needed to talk to the counsel and arrange special protections for the child, because APE would clip him off as easily as they had stopped breathing in their mechanised bodies.

The old man's mind had started humming with all the things he needed to arrange right away to protect years of careful planning. Matters needed to be planned. Processes set into motion. And all in way too little time and without him being there in person. Blast this Richter-class moving towards them like a proverbial snail!

Doctor Franxx muttered to himself as he hobbled along to the nearest transport pod. He needed to get over to Plantation 13 as soon as he could, personally. Zero Two would simply have to tag along. He wanted to bring her in later, but there was no time for finesse now. He'll need to bring that FRANXX, too, it was made to integrate with those already on Plantation 13. He'd need to get the Parasite Caretaker he had groomed for that group over _here,_ so she could come with him to _there_. The Defence Commander he had planted a few weeks ago had already taken on his role, so that was one worry less.

Above all, he needed a plan in case he wasn't fast enough. Something to prevent 016 being sent away. Something to make sure that he would be considered valuable enough to remain.

Would his data suffice? Had he built a strong enough case to convince the old geezers that a slower ageing process, and the saved resources of having to raise fewer Parasites less swiftly would be interesting enough? He frowned deeply as he tried to shuffle along faster.

It had to be enough, simple as that. He stopped to activate a voice call, then resumed hobbling to Central. He would have a few assistants do grunt work and compile the medical data on 016 so far. Add in some comparative text about the other Stamen Code 002 rode with in the past, to show higher stress on the system of the Parasites involved... just pile in information. The Geezers would only want a summary from their own assistants, too.

For now, he needed to place a few important calls.


	7. Chapter 7

Her armed escort took positions outside the briefing room and their behaviour made it quite clear to Zero Two that she would be brought back to her own living space after the meeting by them as well. Shaking her head, she entered the large room and hung to the back.

A briefing room like every other. She had seen them by dozen up until now, and she didn't much care about seeing who was populating the space beside her. Sometimes they were guards, weapons pointed at her. Sometimes it was scientists. Often it was a bunch of useless Parasites, about to be thrown away as fodder for _Papa_. Naturally, in today’s case, she did notice the other Parasites as well as the Nana and Hachi of this place.

The conversation had stopped the moment she entered the room, and she knew all eyes were on her. It didn't matter much one way or the other. Lifting her head, she gazed at Hachi, then cocked an eyebrow at him.

He gave no sign of minding the sudden tension that entered the room with the special Pistil, and when he was satisfied that she was going to pay attention, he turned back to bring up a large scale map of the surrounding area.

"As I was just about to say," he intoned, " we have yet to trace the precise depth of the Richter-class that was located thanks to Code 002." He spoke in a calm, even tone, turning to his unit.

There was a brief mumble from the other Parasites and Zero Two couldn't help but smirk. They would be jealous at her skills. It was only to be expected. ' _But one does not survive a year of fighting with the Nine's without knowing how to read every single little measure of data provided by a FRANXX_ ,' she thought to herself.

"Quiet, please, Children." Nana gave them all a serious look. "We can take questions after this."

Hachi nodded at her. "Thank you. Now, based on the data we have so far, we can roughly extrapolate the direction it was at least an hour ago. This was estimated based on the direction the smaller Conrad- and Dziewoński-class Klaxosaurs have withdrawn, alongside with some seismic calculations. If we extrapolate from there, then we have to potentially deal with a Richter-class headed straight for one of only four fuelling stations in the greater continental area."

Zero Two yawned and leaned back against the wall, closing her eyes for a bit. Briefings were a waste of time, really. Just give her a map, mark the area she was supposed to go kill in, and send her off. Tactics? Discussing enemy movements? Meh. They are Klaxosaurs. ' _Just more monsters..._ '

"We have sent out our reports and are waiting to hear back from APE about the development of the situation, but for now, Plantation 73 is not going to resume moving as it was scheduled to. We have stopped, and we may be turning back." He put up his hand as several of the Parasites tried to speak up. "We are the closest Planation to this possible threat. If the Klaxosaur changes direction, we may still change these plans, but the defence of the fuelling station does not include seasoned FRANXX and Parasites, and anything past a Conrad-class would spell disaster for them."

Nana nodded and took over. "As you all know, Code 002 is a special forces Pistil. She has a lot of combat experience, and that we were even able to prevent being taken by surprise this time around is thanks to her.” She turned to the red-uniformed girl and have her a brief nod. “I would like you to give a brief report on what you noticed and how you noticed it, Code 002." She looked up at the pink-haired girl, and several of the Parasites turned where they sat.

Rolling her eyes, the girl sighed. "Zero Two," she said simply, gazing directly at Nana, "and I will be happy to report. It will be a bit technical, and the Stamen might not understand it all, but I am sure our _skilled_ Pistils will be happy to explain later what they miss." She didn't bother trying to ease things up with a smile.

* * *

Boxed in by four guards, Zero Two was trooped back through the brightly glittering, lifeless city. She had tried to break out for a quick run, but they had grown wise to her and two of the four carried magma energy-tipped lances. ' _Spoilsports..._ '

She had delivered her report on how she knew there was something larger, but as always had been unable to give details how precisely she did know. Two of the Pistils did try to follow her explanations, and one even asked for her to explain the steps she took the next time they were out. And while the pink-haired girl didn't much care for any of these Parasites, she did respect one of them stating they wanted to get better. They might live a year or so longer, if they really wanted to try to grow like that.

Hachi ended up writing her skills off as instincts gained by training with the Nines on the front lines. He was close to the truth in this, but she also knew when to keep her mouth shut and not give more information on something that was not hers to explain.

But after all of this, she really, really wanted something nice and sweet.

Zero Two sighed, remembering how Nana had looked at her after that meeting, when she had asked her to help the girl get some candy. She didn't even specify what; after several days without something properly sweet _anything_ would have served her. But that cool stare was all she got as a reply to her question. No answer, nothing sweet. Just a reminder her ‘escort’ was waiting for her and she better leave soon.

Now, walking in step with her chaperones, she let her mind wander as she looked down into the city from their raised over-viewing pathway. "I wonder. When is the last time any of you have seen your own city like this...?"

None of her guards responded, but she had a feeling they wouldn't even if she directly pointed at one and asked them. Besides, her question, spoken softly, had been directed at the myriad of lights illuminating the artificially golden buildings. Had they perhaps once taken walks up here, looking over this, the greatest marvel of humankind? The cynical side of hers doubted it - and that was the side of hers that commonly was in charge.

Humans were lazy, pampered creatures. Weak from the start; this life had softened them like rotted fruit - past the stage of being sweet and running right into spoiled. Foul. Why anyone would seek to safeguard or protect this way of existing was beyond her. Nothing she saw showed anything but technology, and that alone did not need to be worshipped or held in high regards. Tech was easy. Even Klaxosaurs, mere beasts, had some biotech parts in them.

Zero Two gave the city below her a glare. Nothing mattered to them anymore, and the ones she had grown to understand as being disposable were the only brief glimmers of worth in this dried-up dust bowl. Parasites, crippled as they were, were closer to being human than any Adult she had ever met.

The _sakura_ -haired girl turned her head and gave one of her guards a glance.

She had seen Klaxosaur with more expression than most Adults. Hiding behind their face plates, hiding away the things that would make them individuals, they had given away even their individual facial features to the altar of agelessness. Most of them dressed alike depending on if they lived in the city or were part of the defence forces, too, homogenising even more. Either you were from the city and just lazed away, wearing full-covering clothing; or you worked on keeping this dream bubble alive, wearing some form of uniform.

' _Or,_ ' she added bitterly in her own mind, _'it showed you as being a sadist pervert as part of the medical or research staff._ '

Pulling out her communicator, she reviewed the log of this meeting. Protocolled by a computer, of course, and as such reflecting only ‘the facts’. That is how Adults liked things, in a nutshell. Easy chunks of data without all the ugliness of individuals; without the baggage of nuance. If she had delivered her report in song, the damn thing would read the same way. It had also sucked all meaning out of some of the information she had been able to only convey to the other Pistils as _feeling like..._ , possibly unable to comprehend how to process something as delicate as Linking.

She scoffed, making some of the guards around her tense for a moment. She ignored their discomfort and shook her head at her own thoughts.

Delicate. Linking had rarely been 'delicate' in her career as a Parasite. The first few Stamen she was teamed up with were rough, greedy, demanding. She had consumed the first dozen or so out of reflex when their minds had brutally invaded hers, grabbing back control the moment they tried to jump in and take it.

She remembered a conversation she had with a Station Defence Commander after one such situation. She had been dragged from a Stampede-mode FRANXX again, and instead of letting anyone see her about the wounds she had suffered, she was dragged into a briefing room by guards. She was first spoken to by that station's Hachi and Nana. Then yelled at by a grieving Pistil whose Stamen she had just used up.

She did not understand the problem back then. She had been told to take care of a group of Klaxosaur. They were dead now. The Plantation was protected. Why was everyone upset? People get hurt. In her case, she got hurt almost daily still, back then.

Finally, they had her in contact Doctor Franxx in a meeting room. She was tense at once, her fear of the man instilled into her since her earliest memories. But there were no machines in the room, no guards, no medical personnel. Just him and Hachi. She remembered his serious tone of voice as he told her that consuming the Stamen made her weaker. How she would operate better with a Stamen in control. At first, Zero Two had not really cared about such things, but when he mentioned that in concert with a fitting Stamen she would be able to kill many, many more Klaxosaurs, her interests had been caught.

From then on, she approached each Stamen as an _option_. An option to kill more Klaxosaurs. An option of growing closer to her goal. An option to being able to reunite with her Darling.

"Go inside."

Zero Two emerged from her memories, finding herself in front of her current cage. The door to her apartment stood open, and the guards had boxed her in so that her choice was to enter to try to get past them physically.

The girl sighed, waved her hand flippantly and walked inside without any further comment. She heard the door slide shut and paused to take in the view before her. Bathed in warm golden-orange glow from the panoramic window showing the city, the room still managed to feel cold and dead to her. Uniform and sterile, like the creatures that inhabited the metropolitan sprawl itself. She let her gaze trail to the floor, so she didn't have to keep seeing it.

She reached for the zipper of her uniform and started peeling herself out of the one-piece parasite uniform. As she crossed the main room to what had to function as a bathroom in these things, she left a trail of shed articles of clothing in her wake.

Zero Two stopped before the disinfectant stall and gave her wrist a small sniff. With her last Maintenance having been recent, the metallic odour was minimal. From experience she knew that she could positively reek of Klaxosaur if she managed to get away from Doctor Franxx for long enough. Most humans wouldn't even catch the faintest hints of it... but she always wanted to scrub that stench off; remove any trace of it and cover it up with soap.

But... no such luck. Adults had forsaken the slow comforts of soap and water for the convenience of speed. With a face as if she had bitten into a sour fruit, Zero Two walked into the small stall, held her breath and spread her arms. Even here the rush for saved time had trumped over any kind of sensual experience. Small nozzles on mobile arms circled her body from all directions, top to bottom, covering her in the fine spray that would keep her body clean in the most basic of sense - but it did little to bring any kind of pleasure or enjoyment from the act. A mere thirty-or-so seconds later, the machine stopped it's misting of her body; switching to a deep violet-blue light bathing her whole body as warm air blasted her from all directions at once. She felt her pink hair swirl up and around, then settle moments later when the low humming of the machine ended, and the lights switched off.

Stepping out of the bathroom, she leaned in the door frame back to the main room. She still felt tired and worn. She wondered if more sleep would help, though she was sure she already knew this kind of tiredness did not come from being fatigued.

It came from feeling lonesome. It was a tiredness of the heart; and no matter how much sleep she got, it would not be enough lift the lingering sadness.

But being locked up… what else was there to do? She had turned to head to her bed, when a chime announced visitors.

' _You idiots forget anything?_ '

Zero Two gave her immediate thought a tired smile and turned to walk to the door. Exhausted and tired as she was, she still wouldn’t shake the sharp side of her tongue, even if it was only in her head. She pulled herself up tall as the doors slid open and showed her another faceless guard, holding a small paper bag.

"Yes?" she asked impatiently, her brows pulled down slightly.

"Ah..." The guard shot unsure glances to his left and right, seeking feedback from the two who had remained to watch over her. When none offered up any help, he thrust out his hands, holding the paper bag out like an offering to her. "You could have let me know you were cleaning yourself," he mumbled. "This is from Parasite Code 286. He got permission to have this brought to you, so please appreciate this exceptional gesture accordingly."

The frown set in place still, Zero Two tilted her head curiously as she reached out and plucked the bag from the human’s hands. The moment she held it the new guard stepped back, and the door hissed shut.

She gave the paper thing is glance, dropped the bag, and turned to walk away, seeking to just find her bed. As she passed her uniform, she heard her communicator beep repeatedly, informing her she had a message.

It could be good news, right? An announcement for the next sortie, allowing her to get out of this hell-hole? Zero Two bent over to fish the little device out, hoping past hope for a sortie announcement.

The message was from 286.

' _What the hell... I can do with a laugh._ ' Sometimes this happened when she visited a Plantation. Some kid would see her, think he's got what it takes, and beg her to ride with him. In some cases, they even get permission for it.

In most cases, they never ride with anyone again after that.

But the messages these guys sent normally amused her; full of boasting or trying to flatter her in one form or another.

As such, the letter she read came as a surprise. No flattery. No high praise of her skills, or of the skills of the writer.

Instead, Zero Two found a few simple lines, thanking her for taking on Code 081 as her Stamen, a few words about being happy he found a purpose with her, and the request she looked after him. Her eyes widened a bit when she read that 286 had overhead her asking for sweets and being rejected - and that he apparently had procured some for her from his own personal allowance.

She dashed back, opening the paper bag... and sank to the floor at what she found within. With a slightly trembling hand she reached inside, pulling out a small handful of brightly coloured hard candies in a transparent wrapping.

She sat, staring at the small treasure in her hand.

As she put one in her mouth, biting gently on the wrapper so it would spill its precious contents into her mouth as she pulls the film away; she thought of nothing linked to the city or the Plantation for a few blessed moments. Her eyes closed, letting her see a cold, snowy landscape, as it often did when she first tasted this specific kind of overpowering sweetness.

Opening her eyes again, looking at the open bag and the candies within, she silently thanked 286.

Code 286. Possibly not the first Code 286. Maybe not even the first one she knew.

Parasites were all just codes to her. Not persons. Not individuals.

The Adults, well, they were just these shrouded, faceless beings to begin with.

And Parasites? Getting to know them was pointless, too. Except for the very few Stamen she could think of as being worthy of having been called a Darling, the ones she thought who could rise past their limits and return to the front lines with her... remembering them was wasteful. They would die, and quickly, so remembering them was pointless.

Besides. She would forget them. Unless they rode with her, she would not even bother remembering a face, let alone a name. Disposable to the core, Parasites mattered as little as Adults.

She bit on the candy, savouring how it exploded into tiny, sweet shards between her fangs.

Only her true _Darling_ mattered.


	8. Chapter 8

Tarsier leaned back and huddled deeper into their throne in the APE counsel chamber. "Doctor Franxx may be a genius, but I feel that wasting an entire Garden's crop for just one experiment is going too far to sate one man's curiosity. The payoff cannot possible outweigh the cost."

Lemur, as so often when a difficult subject came up, was the first one to jump into the discussion without any hesitation. They leaned forward in their seat, raising his voice at the oldest of the counsel. "Doctor Franxx was instrumental in the creation of the Plantations and the current status of humanity in its shining splendour. Limiting him, even on his more outlandish projects, would have meant we never got to where we are."

Gorilla steepled their fingers. "He promised this development was important for the production and improved running of the FRANXX we use to defend Plantations; as well as set a future standard for the continued warfare against the Klaxosaurs." They turned their expressionless mask to regard several of the gathered counsel before he rumbled, "I say we give him what he needs for that goal."

Baboon, as so often, sat back in their own throne-like chair, relaxed, turning their head this way and that to observe the other members of the counsel. As they let their gaze wander, they noticed another one looking at him.

Marmoset gave them a small nod of the head before letting their mask face the Vice Chairman, who, as so often, simply watched the head of the counsel quietly.

The figure only known to all of them after this long time now as ' _Papa_ ' sat quite stiffly in his own throne, listening to the argument. Their word was the final on every interaction present, so they wouldn't often join discussions.

The smallest and oldest member of the counsel let their throne drift higher in the chamber, sitting up straighter. "But how long is too long? An entire crop? Twenty years? And we approved four more after that first one, when he claimed he had made promising progress with the first round. But where is that progress?" Looking at the controls in their arm rest, the wizened creature tapped some commands and opened ten files for all to view. "He only got ten out of the whole crop he nearly fully wasted. That other Parasites were skimmed off to be used in regular squadrons was merely a bonus to him, and lucky for us. Only ten,” they growled, “and one of them has been declining steadily. His yellow blood cell count at this point is at bare minimum tolerance levels."

"Maybe," Marmoset agreed, "but that would be one washout only this late in the stage of the experiments he promised to run. It has a much better average than what he had projected, after all." They opened their arms disarmingly. "And we all agreed that the current process was often using Parasites up at much too fast a pace. We needed new ideas to find out what the problem was to begin with."

Gorilla and Lemur nodded at this.

Baboon leaned forward and pulled the file of Parasite Code 016 closer. "The washout-"

"He is not rejected yet," Gorilla put in.

Baboon turned its head and watched Gorilla before they repeated, "The _washout_ seems to be the one that Doctor Franxx had his highest hopes in. Code 016 was designated to be team leader, partnered with Code 015, wasn't he?"

The Vice Chairman nodded, speaking up for the first time. "He was, but I have a feeling we should split that group up. 015 is too valuable as a Pistil to be wasted in case he does not make it. Indeed, making her the new leader would possibly make the most sense."

A few of the masks nodded, and _Papa_ spoke up for the first time in this discussion. "I agree with this. Doctor Franxx can experiment as he likes, but I will not waste potentially well-suited Parasites. Pair 016 with one of the Pistils who already appear to struggle. It will remove two unsuited ones at the same time. That will minimise the loss for us all. "

Lemur turned its mask to face their counsel head. "Doctor Franxx will object..."

"Perhaps," Papa replied, "but we can always tell him the truth. His experiment is costly, and it can put Plantation 13 in danger. We need to make sure it will not cause _too many_ problems for those in our care."

Backing him up, Marmoset added, "Besides, we have two more crops waiting to ripen into their potential use. He is already designing the new, individualised FRANXX for them as well."

"Another waste of resources," Tarsier ranted. "For plantation 13, he had ten built, and we will end up using only five of them! Five," they bitterly spat. "which we could have used to build at least one regular one each. One and a half, even!"

"If this plays out the was that Doctor Franxx believes it will, then going forward, customised units are the future. After these crops, the Nines are to receive customised units," Gorilla added, "and just think of how much they have been able to achieve so far. They have also been raised differently, and we entrust them with the front lines, often for days by themselves." As typical for them, military prowess seemed to be all they cared about. The topic seemed to have lost its vigour here for them.

Baboon shrugged. "I will gladly apologise if it turns out that way. But we should monitor the situation closely, to avoid losing this experiment or the Plantation which hosts them."

"Speaking of Plantation 13," the Vice Chairman said, clearly intending to change the topic, "Doctor Franxx requested some staff changes as well. He said he wished to replace both Code 008 and Code 007.” They looked through the files submitted by their head scientist. “He said the Code 007 he has in mind has been with the special crop of Parasites for some time in Garden now, so they are used to her and apparently that would matter for his experiments. And the Code 008 he has transferred used to be in a Squadron with her, which apparently also matters." They looked up from the file they read out. "What do you suppose this means?"

Papa looked impassive, turning his mask to regard everyone else.

It was Gorilla who spoke up again. "Have we had a Code 007 and a Code 008 who were Squadron mates before?"

"Once or twice, maybe, on accident?" Tarsier seemed distracted, looking through the files. "I have no objections to this Code 008, he seems like a good pick. But why was this Code 007 used to begin with? Why was she not pruned?"

"She was capable and looked like she could make a good Breeder," Marmoset replied. "What can be a flaw in a Parasite can be a boon in one of _them_. She it seems she raised this crop just as Doctor Franxx had wanted, hence her transfer." Browsing the same file, the council member shook their head. "Since their procedure to be corrected, I see nothing that would bar them from taking on the new duties. Her issues were addressed and revised. We have to trust in our processes to function as intended, after all."

Gorilla pulled the files of the two mentioned officers closer. "She was a very capable Pistil. He a very skilled Stamen. I have no objections in having these two oversee them. You want warriors to watch warriors."

Huddled back into their robe, Tarsier muttered, "What about wounded warriors wounding warriors...?"

Marmoset shook its head. "I believe Doctor Franxx when he explains that wounds strengthen those who have emotions. I will place my trust in him in this."

The chamber fell silent after that, each council member checking their own files for topics they may want to address still, but had not yet found the opening for.

It was the Vice Chairman who finally called for the meeting to be adjourned until the next cycle, and one by one, the members left on their own errant and agendas.


	9. Chapter 9

When the alarms finally rang out, Zero Two was suited up already and jogging to her FRANXX. She had watched the movement reports on the herd of Klaxosaurs for the last two days already, and it would only have been a matter of time before they gathered and decided to push forward. Had this been the front lines, they’d simply have laid out magma bait, but the staff here had enjoyed playing a waiting game it seemed to her. No matter. They started to group and moved forward, and she knew Hachi couldn’t afford to mobilise now.

Her guards had tried to tackle her, but they were easily shaken off. She was stronger, faster than any mere human. Being a monster had its advantages, after all.

As she sprinted down the dressing room’s hallway, the other Parasites were only just coming the other way to get geared up. Her eyes flicked from one to the other, holding her Stamen just a moment longer as she snarled, "You better move it," still running her hardest. It would have been faster if she had pinged hi, but she had a feeling he’d not hurry up for her intuition. He would have waited for an order from Hachi either which way, frustrating as it was.

She hated to wait, but it couldn’t be helped, it seemed. And while her Stamen might be dragging his feet, at the very least she could get her FRANXX in position and ready for him to just hop in.

The girl felt her excitement spike. After days of sitting around in her apartment like a prisoner, unable to even take a damned _walk_ , she was now running; and the harder she ran, the more energy she felt she had to spare. A toothy grin started to spread over her face as she enjoyed the thrill of running.

As she skidded to a halt in the hangar, the organised chaos of a sortie was happening all around her. Mechanics ran seemingly headless to take up positions, specialists connected one set of instruments to the mechs, while decoupling others from the FRANXX as they were carefully moved into their launch bays.

Zero Two saw someone run the magma refuelling past her FRANXX and sprinted towards them. "Oi! Do Strelizia first! I am already here after all, the others are still changing. Hurry it up!"

The Adult hesitated, then changed the input of the refuelling arm, moving it to her white-and-fire coloured mech. She shot him a wide smile, then turned on her heels, running up the ramp to her cockpit.

Bouncing restlessly, she waited as she interlinked face-plates of her _mecha_ slowly uncoupled, opening up smoothly before her. Zero Two climbed on the main gate, leaning most of her upper body over the edge. She glanced down the left arm of her FRANXX, still seeing scorch marks from the last fight. Looks like nobody had bothered to buff up her machine after she had pulled in from the last sortie.

' _Well. Not like it'll matter too much. The right works perfectly still, and that's where the lance sits._ ' She tried to put on a good face, but also knew that the other mechs would have been taken care of already. Maintenance of the Plantations own FRANXX always happened before her own – it had always been like this, no matter where she went. With her own, well, the approach of many seemed to be that, since she always came back in one piece, her combat machine was indestructible somehow.

She heard someone huff up the ramp and jump into the cockpit behind her. "About time you’d show up," she quipped, pulling herself up and strolling into the cockpit behind him.

081 gave her an almost anxious look, sitting up stiffly in his seat. "I have no idea how you can be so relaxed, 002," he breathed as she sauntered to her own position. "Even I am feeling this one. This group is huge for how isolated we normally are out here."

Kneeling, gripping her seat with her thighs, she turned to glance over her shoulder. "Three- to four hundred, 081. Piece of cake." She turned, feeling her feet slot into the stirrups within her position. "I have fought larger groups, even larger groups of larger classes before. And these are only Conrads; no other classes have been reported." She chuckled. “We’re in no trouble at all.”

"Even with you saying that..." He shifted in his seat, slotting his own feet into the connection slots. "We're down one FRANXX, so a lot of the team manoeuvres won't work. And you are ... more suited to be a solo fighter than the rest of the squadron here is." There was a hint of an accusation there, a reminder that he felt her actions previously had been forceful.

Zero Two merely smiled a cool smile to herself as she faced forward, ready to launch. "Let's ride."

While not fully linked just yet, she could already feel the mighty combat _mecha_ much better, kneeling in position as she was. She gripped the handles, feeling her gloves tingle as Strelizia reached out to her to connect. The handles on her hips flared out, and she felt the hood of her helmet slide closed to show 081 their baseline.

Closing her eyes, she did as she always did when she was about to link, she tried to tell herself to ease up. _'Remember, Zero Two. This is for your Darling...'_ The girl gritted her teeth, dreading the feeling about to hit her. 081 grabbed on to her, and she in return seized him. As with most of her linking, it was a fight for control, and she felt his rough push inside of her with deep discomfort. However, a large fight beckoned to her, so she would just take his intrusion.

Eager to start, she dragged him deep inside of her, linking his thoughts with hers - at least as deep as she would allow it. She knew there were places she’s never let anyone into, thoughts and memories that she would never share. And keeping Stamen out of these places was second nature by now.

Their compatibility increased to a steady hundred-and-two, better than needed, but she refused to let him in deeper as he still pushed and probed. He was where she wanted him, and that damn well better be enough for him, too.

The moment their mechanised weapon powered up, lifting its power-driven, expressionless face-plate, Zero Two turned 'her' left arm and stared down at 'her' hand. She opened and closed that hand, flexed the arm a bit, until a frantic mechanic shouted at them to hold still, they were still in transit to their launch position. She would have sighed, if her body had been able to move still. A clamp reached out, securing the arms of her FRANXX for the prelaunch sequence. Her frustration spiked once again.

None the less, it still amused the girl to this day how her sensory experience changed once she was linked; how she _became_ Strelizia in a way that she had not ever quite been one with any other FRANXX. While in a normal FRANXX she would still be fed the sensory input as if her own senses had been replaced by the machine; in Strelizia she always felt as if everything had grown out from her, like her body had simply been clad in a second layer of her Parasite suit.

It was like wearing armour, making her feel like she could take on the world on her own.

She felt the bonds and connection points of the launch pad take over from their stasis lock-down and her excitement soared once again.

In her mind, already awash with information, 081's voice pushed through. "Slow down, 002. We're still not unlocked. Your link data is surging." His voice was back to its normal low, cool tone.

"How boring," her now-digitalised voice said, showing him a side-view of the mech's face-plate to his right. "I wanna go already..."

Bored now, the girl pulled up the data of several of the cameras in and around her. 081 sat quietly, reviewing information on a few different screens. Part of her mind pulled the same files and glanced them over. Much to Zero Two’s disappointment, she was only finding the mission reports and the statistics of the other FRANXX, which he seemed to place to one side in his field of view. Clearly, he wanted to keep an eye on his former squad mates.

Well, that was _whatever_ to her. So long as he was there to power up the FRANXX and give her enough control over it, she would let him play at still being on this team.

So long as he didn't get in her way.

So long as she got to kill a lot of Klaxosaurs today.

"C'mon, what's the holdup," she growled. The FRANXX was in the launch bay now, but she still couldn't move. The docking claps still held it in place, and it was getting in her nerves.

"The rest of the squadron aren't in place yet." He was still reviewing the mission data.

Feeling quite physically chained, a very anxious and bored Zero Two turned to the camera over his shoulder, looking through the same files.

There was nothing new, really. The Richter-Class hadn't moved, so it was assumed it was simply a carrier, not actually an attack unit itself. That had been confirmed when from its location the current force of Conrads pushed out and headed towards them. A satellite scan had tried to grab the basic design of these new Conrads, and even Zero Two had to admit their design was new to her.

A large, flexible crescent-like tail seemed to be their main mode of transportation, flipping them forward in a hopping, jumping motion. Each such forward-flip seemed to carry them either six meters up, or about 10 meters forward. Somehow, that large, curled flipper made her think of a shrimp. _Unlike_ a shrimp, however, the body sitting 'atop' these flippers seemed more like a rectangle covered in about a dozen or so antennae, crackling with blue energy. Jumping seemed to cost some energy, as they drooped with each vault, then stood up energised as they sailed forward. No arms or pincers where visible, and Zero Two assumed they would mainly attach with a maw-like opening along their bodies, like most Conrad-sized Klaxos’.

The groan of machinery outside made her turn her attention outward. The gate opened, and the launch field was lowering. They had been slotted into the skyward launchers, she realised with a feeling of deep liking. _Good_. If it came to speed, she could race these regular FRANXX and their standard pilots, beating them easily in reaching the first wave.

Fighting against the software limiters and clamps on the feet and arms of Strelizia, Zero Two struggled to move forward. She felt the grip of 081 tighten on her handles and she felt frustration well up inside of her. ' _He was going to be a problem in this, wasn't he?'_

The squadron leader broadcast to all units, laying out some dumb battle plan about corralling groups of the enemy by use of their magma-energy lassos before frying them. Effective, but really quite wasteful, the part-Klaxosaur girl thought. Using their blades was faster and preserved more energy for then it was really needed. And, okay, while the spear of the regular FRANXX units was shorter than her lance, surely they knew how to pierce a core, once they viewed a Klaxosaur - didn't they?

As they were gearing up to sortie for good now, Zero Two became more conscious of 081's presence in her mind. His scent, his taste, the stoic core that was him inside of her... It really wasn't all that unpleasant, she thought to herself. But, like all other Stamen before him, he was pushing too far. He tried to climb deeper into her self; pushed forward while she tried to keep him out. She couldn't allow him to dive that deep, and she didn't want him to claim that much of her. She lacked the trust that he wouldn't go looking into things he wasn't supposed to see.

Hachi gave the order, and Zero Two felt the shackles fall from Strelizia. With a surge of energy, she jumped forward, flying into heat of the late afternoon air. Now fully aware of her sensors coming to life, she absorbed every detail around her, while still keeping the bulk of her power in the thrusters. She saw herself arch out of the Plantation 73's launching pad, higher, further than the others. With a rush of exhilaration, she gripped her lance tighter, directing her sensors to zoom into the closest group of the first wave.

And suddenly, her energy balance was shifted. "Don't rush, 002," 081 said calmly, pulling her back.

Holding her down; keeping her from her goal.

The rest of the squadron caught up, their leader shouting some nonsense about some plan. She scoffed. "Leader-san, if you don't want to get hurt in this mass of enemies," Zero Two growled, "then you're better off letting me go in while you hang out behind and pick off those who manage to slip by me."

"That isn't the plan we discussed, 002!" the squadron leader snapped back. " _You_ are _our_ backup!"

"Yeah, that'll be the day," the Klaxosaur-hybrid scoffed. Reaching into her Stamen, she felt her need rise within, the desire to drink deeper from his own ability. He was, if nothing else were to be considered, capable. Having survived as long as he had; having gotten away from several Pistils perishing - he had the ability she needed today.

But she also knew she had a long battle ahead. Taking his skills now would be too soon.

"Hey, 081," she said instead on an internal com channel. "You and I can prevent that more of your friends get hurt, you know." She knew at once from the spike in tension in their link that she had his attention. _Good_. "We're in a position to cover for Code 286, for example, if we hang all the way to 3 o'clock right away..."

She tastes his hesitation, smelled his resistance to break formation, but finally felt him shift direction while opening a channel to the rest of the group. "The Klaxosaurs are moving too irregular to project them as we normally would have. I agree with Code 002, I will head up one side of the flank and provide cover. It makes sense that way." She murmured softly, "Sorry."

Pushing them just a bit, just to test out how far he'd left her run, Zero Two slowly increased the power to their boosters, speeding along the group's back to their flank. Once there, she shifted energy into the lance holding it out sideways to be ready. Code 081 did not stop her.

Their speed slowly carried them into the lead position, and finally she felt his resistance to her relax. He stopped pushing into her, instead taking what she gave. "Yes," she muttered, "thank you... just let me do this… just let me work..."

Allowing him to meld with her, the girl let their FRANXX flow into the first group, bending it's right leg while stretching out the left one to the side, skating over the dusty planes before her at a lower angle. Her lance only a few meters above the ground scooped up a dozen Klaxosaurs, drawing first blood in this fight. Like a reaper's scythe her lance mowed into the first row, only to speed up at the end of her flight, turning sharply, flexing the mech's legs the opposite way as she blasted through the next row.

They were agile little things, she thought as a group sped up, clearing her with large, powerful jumps. She couldn't reach them all, but stealing the controls for a moment, she kicked one leg up, swerving Strelizia on her back while knocking one of the jumpers flying back into the oncoming mob, sending the herd into a jumble. She kicked down the other leg, turning back to have her belly low to the ground as the FRANXX sped low above ground right-way up again. Zero Two used the left arm to beat another jumper out of the air and into the ground as she did before she pulled her right arm across her chest, cradling Strelizia's lance in the cock of her left arm. Stabilised now, she ploughed right into the next group, lining them up on her lance like crunchy, blue-blooded _dango_.

Flinging her lance wide at the end of her run, sending the remains of dead or stunned Klaxosaurs flying, she felt the rush of battle rise once more.

Code 081, like so many before him, had to be a spoilsport. She felt him grab her handles tighter, reigning her power in close. "Don't be a show-off, 002," he growled, "you're messing up the formation!"

Sparing a moment to scan the battle, she saw the group wasn't in any danger. Sure, some Klaxosaur had spread out a bit more than maybe planned for, but she was sure they could handle at least _that_ much of a variation. "They aren't newbies, 081," she sighed in annoyance.

"No, but they need to follow the laid-out battle plan. And you're messing it up. Follow the plan!"

She fought in frustration as she felt him kick Strelizia 's legs forward, boosting her thrusters and speeding to the back of the group, leaving the front line to his former squad mates.

Being in the back lines, however, suddenly gave them a view they had not expected: a change in the behaviour of the Klaxosaur groups rushing at them. Groups of ten skipped higher in the air, aligning their 'tails' into the centre of through grouping, while spreading out their antennae as they dropped into the path of the incoming FRANXX.

"FALL BACK," Zero Two barked over the broadcast, the sensors replacing her senses clearly and quickly communicating what the lesser experienced squad was about to miss. Three of the Stamen reacted to the shout on instinct, breaking their flight up by pushing back. The FRANXX of their leader, however, too used to being in command to listen to the order of anyone else, sped into two grouped clusters; their combined bodies seemingly harmless and only reaching up to the legs of her _mecha_. "Damnit," she growled, already taking back movement control by force from 081, pushing Strelizia through the confusion, her left arm extended to tackle the FRANXX of Code 116 out of the huddle.

It became clear quickly that they had been too far away to help in time. The antennae of the clustered Klaxosaurs lit up with crackling blue energy, arcing over into the FRANXX stuck between them. With a scream 116 went still, her power source being overloaded.

Strelizia drooped the tip of the magma lance, letting it dig into the rocky ground before her, using it like a vaulting pole to clear over the laid trap - and the trapped FRANXX inside of it.

Zero Two felt the tension of her Stamen taint his taste. Already not the sweetest of morsels, the way he moved and grabbed her handles would have caused her to make a grimace of distaste, if she had control over a face at this time. 081 knew as well as she did, and she knew that was what sparked his anxiety. Squadrons without their leader were at the mercy of their attackers, as they were not used to simply execute attacks without direction from a single field commander. They were going to get swallowed whole like this.

As one, for a change, they dropped Strelizia from behind into the clustered traps and speared through them, sending them into a broken, ineffective scatter. Smaller groups tried to form but were dispersed with a wide swing of her fully-powered lance. "Get them out of here," 081 barked at the rest of the squad over the open broadcast. "Move it!"

Zero Two didn't bother going to a private channel when she replied. "They can't, those idiots." Another large swipe from her lance, executed by both of them in tandem, scattered Conrads in a wide semi-circle around them. "They'll need hand holding!" When her Stamen didn’t react, she snarled at him, "Just pick one!"

She took the lead from him, dropping the lance low over the ground, kicking their thrusters up, flying into the thick of the Klaxosaurs surrounding them. It was fast, it was sloppy, and the feedback in her lance told her at once that she missed a half dozen cores in this attack - but might just have caused enough damage to stun a bunch. Again, she manipulated their thrusters, this time looking over her shoulder as she pulled her left arm close to her torso. She felt the FRANXX arm clink into place and she aimed directly for the still-stunned frame holding an incapacitated leadership team.

Seeing her intent, 081 finally made a choice. "Code Two Eight Four; Code Eight Two One! Get One One Six!"

Zero Two would have smirked if she could. Her FRANXX' arm connected sharply with the body of the other _mecha_ and lifting its body with an extra boost to her thrusters, she knocked the heavy weapon off the ground, sending it flying towards the withdrawn units. "You heard him," she shouted gleefully, flicking her legs in the other direction for a counter-thrust the second her arm cleared. “You better stay out of my way now!”

Leaning into gravity, her right arm shot out in a straight line, the lance pointed at a cluster of Conrads trying to form another trap. With a roar she sped forward, dragging her stunned Stamen along. The girl’s thirst for battle took over, now that the other squad was clear. 081's distraction was out of the way, and she... she pulled him deep now.

“Play time is over, 081,” she growled, maniacal glee vibrating in her digitalised voice. Going all out, Zero Two skated along the front line of Klaxosaurs, directing more and more fuel into her lance. The entire row before her got scooped by her pierce attack, and when she flipped her thrusters into the other direction to shake her lance free, she delighted in the wide arc she threw her weapon, knocking another dozen off balance. In the back of her mind, she felt the taste of her Stamen grow sharp, metallic, as his hands grasped her handles tighter, trying to hang on to control.

But Zero Two was having far too much fun by now. Using her lance once more as a pole to jump into the thick of things, she readied a little surprise. When the Klaxosaurs around her took the bait and tried to arrange themselves into a large trap, the girl/FRANXX dropped two magma cylinders in her wake before using her thrusters to bunny-hop deeper into the fray. A satisfying shower of blue blood followed the low thud of the explosion behind her, and she thrilled in gliding through the herd, her lance once again braced into her left arm. She rose from the midst of enemies, slamming her lance to the ground to crush another half dozen cores; before she pulled deep through her Stamen. She felt him struggle, heard him cry out in pained protest, but she needed more. Needed his control, needed his power. Needed to kick into high gear, turning her flight into a noose around the herd of Conrads; turning her lance into the scythe to clear out the vermin, the beasts, the _monsters_ who would elevate her, rise her to touch the goal she needed to grab onto...

The only thing that saved 081 by the time the sun set, was the last Klaxosaur exploding into a shower of blue blood.


	10. Chapter 10

Strelizia limped back into the landing bay, teetering on stampede mode. With the girl’s body locked in place inside of her piloting seat, nothing about Zero Two's struggle showed as she dragged her FRANXX through the wide-open doors of the hangar.

While not truly physical, manoeuvring a FRANXX with a semi-conscious Stamen was a chore. Her 'body', her FRANXX, felt as if it had become encased in thick rubber, each movement training against itself. Each step felt like she dragged her own body weight five times over. Her arms barely worked; only managing to hold on to the magma lance as it dragged behind her, fully discharged.

That they had managed not to slip into Stampede mode was a miracle to her. Zero Two felt like a cat with her claws and fangs deep into the body of a struggling animal as she tried to hold on to mind of 081. She felt the metallic taste of his breaking inner self stick to her mind, making her drool as if she had bitten into a sour fruit. Although his taste had not been unpleasant before, now she wanted to just spit him out like so much gristle. The Pistil had sucked him just about barren of ability, but he showed amazing perseverance in trying to struggle forward still. Somewhere in the back of her FRANXX sensor-filled mind, she felt his hands grabbing her handles, as if cramped in place.

Through the exhausting track up the ramp, the girl strained to keep her scanners active - the information flooding her mind distracted her from giving in and fully consuming her Stamen right away. The scanners showed her that the other FRANXX had returned safely to be loaded into the docking bay, and only two of the Parasite teams remained to see her even pull in. Naturally, they had not offered help or even asked if they were alright. She had maybe heard they call out to their former squad mate, but not a thought for her - even though Strelizia had been doing the heavy lifting.

With the last of her energy, and the last bit of control she could wring out of 081, her FRANXX dropped to its hands and knees, popping open the entry hatch.

He must have finally let go her handles, as Zero Two felt herself snap back inside of her own body in a rushed, unpleasant manner. It was like being plunged into icy water, followed by being lit on fire when the abortion of contact happened this abruptly, and she groaned out in pain through clenched teeth. Kneeling in her piloting position, she gasped for air, trying to quickly breathe through the pain.

She felt cut up. Bruised. She had the sensation of a slow trickle of warm blood on her face and she was certain she'd have been thrown around a fair bit again if her general sore state, shortness of breath, and the hammering of her heart were any indicator. Her chest felt like it had been crushed by a vise for an hour, and only now could her heart and lungs try to start working normally again.

As she still struggled it pull herself from the connections of her Parasite suit, a jumble of medical staff rushed in. And ran past her to check in on 081, of course. If any of these faceless masks had glanced at her, she'd never know. No concern was raised, no word said. Just the people clustered around 081, trying to get him to respond to them as they started too prepare their assistance.

Zero Two clenched her teeth against the pain as she struggled up and staggered to the door. They were right, she knew. Why check on her. She could take this. Hell, they had seen her in worse shape before, so this was nothing. She'd possibly heal this stuff overnight without anyone poking or prodding her anyhow.

' _Still,_ ' she thought as she struggled to leave the cockpit and started to limp across the landing bay hall, ' _just a quick confirmation if ace Pistil Zero Two is okay would be nice for a change._ '

Looking around the hangar, she saw that 116's FRANXX was pretty badly beat up. It looked like one hand had been stuck into a Klaxo-maw, twisted and shredded up. They'll possibly need to replace the whole thing, maybe even its arm. That meant the girl's hand, and maybe her arm, were going to be in bad shape. Heavy damage like that to their mechs would directly translate to the Pistil. She knew from experience how much damage that could cause.

Sighing, Zero Two remembered her first bad run-in with that feeling; back before she learned to work better with Stamen and controlling them to do her bidding. A damn _Moho_ ' had torn off one of the FRANXX' legs, and she had limped for four days. That Doctor Franxx told her that any other Pistil might have been bound to a bed for a week at least, with slow healing following... did not really comfort her or help her hurt pride all that much.

She slumped with her back against the wall beside the lift. Zero Two closed eyes as she weakly hammered against the call button with a limp fist. The girl flinched at the dull throbbing throughout her body. Each pump of her heart drove home the bone-deep exhaustion after running the FRANXX in the way she had. It was dangerous, teetering on the edge of Stampede mode while dragging along her Stamen... but none simply measured up. They would hesitate, take too long, not make the needed calls - if she could solo a FRANXX properly, she would in a heartbeat.

She deeply yearned for a bath. Just something to sink her body into while she closed her eyes. Something to wash away the stench of Klaxosaur on her. Something to help her relax and unwind. Something out of the ordinary, really.

No such luck for Code 002, she knew. At best, she would walk into the changing rooms, have her Parasite suit peeled off by robotic arms and maybe even have time for a long hot shower in the girl’s changing room. The other upside of being on sortie - at least when it came to piloting FRANXX, they treated her a little bit like a normal Pistil.

What felt like a small army of footsteps rushed in her direction. She opened her eyes slowly, blinking against the light as she started to focus on her surroundings again. There was a slight change in the air around her as the life doors clunked open at her side.

081 was rushed past her on a stretcher, surrounded by medical staff. With dispassionate interest she watched them simply brush past her into the lift and she turned to follow them into the small cramped capsule. The girl had called the damn thing, she would be damned if she waited for the next one. She was tired, too. And unlike him, she wouldn’t be carried around.

By what she could see, he seemed to be in pretty bad shape. They had torn up his Parasite suit and attached sensors and diodes all over his body. Each arm had two infusions entering his body, and Zero Two didn't need to read the bags attached to know that they were blood, electrolytes and two full bags of yellow blood cells. She knew the signs of this treatment; had seen it with countless of her Stamen. That he needed the same didn’t surprise her at all – what did surprise her was that he managed to get out alive, even with all the care she had put into using him.

One member of the medical staff turned his head and looked at her. "You can still walk. If you need help, you need to get yourself into the medical bay on your own." With that piece of news, he turned his back on her again.

Zero Two didn't say anything. What would the point be? She would be alone after this, as she always was alone in these things. Struggling against facts was pointless and getting angry was too exhausting right now. Instead, she lifted her gloved hand to wipe over her forehead, smearing blood in a wide streak along to the side of her face, where she felt a large droplet pearl away. She lifted her hand, sniffed it, and gave her fingers a careful lick.

It wasn't too bad, really. Having undergone maintenance only recently also meant her saurification was being controlled, and she wouldn't reek of these... _monsters_.

The lift doors opened, and everyone except her rushed out, trotting her Stamen away to be evaluated.

She waited for the doors to slide shut, then punched the button for the changing room floor.

Zero Two ached, she was tired and all she wanted was just a time for herself.

How had Adults grown to no longer want to have a swim? What was so bad about sinking into a tub and just relax? Why not allow yourself some time just relaxing like that?

The elevator spat her out at the correct floor, and she shuffled to get herself peeled out of her suit so she could at least take that shower that had been on her mind for the last few minutes. Standing in the dressing automaton, she stretched out as the sensory net that was commonly called a 'parasite suit' was peeled from her body. The sensor that slotted her feet into heels was retracted, the connection to her underwear was removed, and finally, she could go into the changing area to grab her towel and head into the showers -

'...b _ut not with four guards looking over me._ ' Bleeding and bruised, she squared up to the four men standing in the changing room. "The hell are you doing in here?" Zero Two snarled, pulling herself up to stand tall. She had a pretty good idea what she looked like right now, her nearly-nude form showing every scrape and bruise, standing taller than most guys her age. "This is the girl's locker-room."

"We are here to make sure you don't wander off, Code 002," one of the faceless metal masks replied slightly muffled. "Please hurry and get dressed. Doctor Franxx is waiting."

"Huh? What?" She blinked, clenching her fists at her side. "I can't, I need to shower first. I’m dirty still."

"He stated there was no time to wait for that. Please get dressed."

She clenched her fists in frustration. First nobody cared if she was hurt, now they wouldn't even let her have a hot shower? Stalking into the face of the guard who had spoken, angling her face down a bit to look into what she assumed was where his eyes would be, she snarled, "And if I don't want to, and _need_ a shower first?"

The humming of magma energy being routed to weapons from behind her was her answer. She tucked her chin to her left, peering over her shoulder before flicking her eyes back to the guard she spoke to, her head turning to follow her gaze. Pulling herself up, she tried her best glare, tiling her head slightly to cast her eyes in shadow from her brow and bangs.

"If you do not get dressed to come with us, we will stun and take you there as you are now." The man showed no anger, no frustration - no emotion at all, really. He stated a fact he knew to her.

"Tch." Zero Two spun and faced her locker. "The hell does the old guy want so urgently, anyhow?" Of course, nobody replied to her. They stood silently, watching her as she stuffed herself back into the clothing she had worn this morning. Looked on while she was pulling on her regular underwear after peeling the sensory bra and panties off; watched as she pulled on her pantyhose; made no comment as they watched her pull out her red special forces uniform and pulled it on without any modesty or common graces. She turned as she buckled the belt around her waist. "Fine. Lead the way."

Seething, hurting, tired, the girl turned her brain off as she simply walked along. If she missed a turn, well, the guards could always poke her in the right direction, no?

It wasn't like she needed an escort, really. After all, she memorised the layout of all Plantations years ago, when she had first started piloting. It was just a reminder to her, Zero Two knew. A reminder that she was not allowed to do as she pleased. A reminder that she was under _their_ control. She was being humbled by not receiving what she needed or craved; pushed around past the breaking point again and again - and this little episode was no different.

Sometimes, rarely, she also found it was a mix of kicking her around to keep her in line... with the fact that the good Doctor did not care one lick how she felt. To him, she had always just been an experiment. Something to poke holes in. Something to gather samples from. An _object_ , never a _person_. In a world where objects were granted unique names, like her own FRANXX, and actual persons were just assigned codes, Doctor Franxx seemed to feel that she was not worth thinking of as an individual at all.

They passed the nearest elevator to take them to the APE restricted area, and the girl frowned at her guards. Were they stalling?

Whatever. Not like she was keen on seeing Franxx so soon after they had arrived here. In some cases, he had dropped her off and left her at a Plantation for weeks, even months on her own. Other times they came, she used a Stamen, and they left again. Franxx claimed he was looking for some kind of a match, that he was using her to test different Stamen, but she never was included in any of the discussions directly. All she learned she had managed to overhear when he was just babbling along to himself. One of the few upsides of being seen as an object: People let their guard down. A chair or a picture frame can't eavesdrop, after all - so why would she?

She learned a lot, thanks to that fact. They often forgot she was present. While strapped onto medical tables was where she learned the most. Right after that, it was during the long-haul transport flights from Plantation to Plantation, when everyone was chattering happily along, ignoring that she saw three rows behind them. Not much of it made sense to her, because while they often talked unguarded, what they talked about sounded boring to her, and she would only pick up a bit here and there before she started thinking about other things and zone out.

As she had expected to be dragged to one of the offices in the central command hub, she started to feel anxious when she realised, they were headed to the lifts leaving the city - in that direction lay the medical ward. ' _No... no, I only just had testing and maintenance done... my results were good... I didn't kill 081, either! ...or, maybe he died? Damnit all... why...?_ '

They had to push her halting steps into the glass-walled elevator sliding up the walls of the inner sanctum towards the upper levels that connected to the facilities of the Plantation. She stumbled along, but thanks to being injured and sore, having spent two hours in a near-solo mission, and having dragged her Stamen along because he had been too damn slow - she did not have the energy to put up more than a token fight. Boxed in by guards, she anxiously reached up and rubbed one of her horns. The inhibitor had started to kick in, and its pressure was starting to give her a headache.

"H-Hey..." Zero Two watched as the city slowly shrank while the lift slid up towards the command area with wide-open eyes. She turned to the nearest guard. "Hey, _hey_ , why are we not going to the command hub?" She looked at the others, her anxiousness rising. "What's going on here?"

"Doctor Franxx told us to escort you to him. That is all we know."

She stared at them, knowing that was all she'd get, then spun to look out the window.

There was no escape, not for her alone. The girl knew she would be caught and brought back, no matter how often she would try to break free. On her own, she could not fly. On her own, she had no wings to carry her. Besides, where would she run to, all by herself. Being who she is. Being just a monster.

She needed to hurry up and become human, so she could get out with her _Darling_.

The lift jerked to a halt and the guards boxed her in once more, marching her on the shortest route towards the medical facilities, where more guards lined the hallway already.

With clenched teeth, Zero Two steeled herself for the worst as she entered the examining room. 


	11. Chapter 11

It took a guard shoving her through the doors with the broad side of his rifle, before Zero Two stumbled into the darkened room in the medical facility. She spun around to sneer at the faceless guard, but the door was already hissing shut into her face. A voice from behind her froze her blood.

"Zero Two, good, you're here. Look at this." Doctor Franxx sounded interested, as he would while looking into a piece of data or another. There was no greeting for her, no general acknowledgement that she, as a person, was present. One piece of data he could compare to another pieces of data - that's all she was to him. That she limped, that she was bleeding, that she was exhausted to the bone; none of that impacted his data, so all of it was ignored.

While generally fearless to the point of recklessness, Zero Two felt apprehensive of the doctor. All of her childhood could be boiled down to 'this man caused me years of pain', and the only thing that had broken through it had been her Darling. When he came, things had changed. Her time with the laboratories had changed. Her quarters had changed. The doctor had changed. Everything was better, after _he_ had been with her.

But _he_ wasn't here anymore. And he wouldn't, until she finished the duty APE and Doctor Franxx had put on her - eradicate the Klaxosaurs. Once she had done that, she would see him again, they said. And she believed that was the only truth they ever told her. And until then, she knew, there were two leashes on her collar - and one was in this old man's hand.

She turned to see the room properly. It was kept dark to ease the rest of its main occupant besides herself and Franxx - Code 081 was stripped to his Parasite underwear, a light sheet pulled up from his feet to his neck. The cloth seemed to lightly move as he breathed slowly.

Carefully, she approached the medical bed, glancing at her current Stamen. His laboured breathing wheezed under the oxygen mask they had placed over his nose and mouth and she saw that even more infusions were pushed into his body, foremost of these yellow blood cells.

She glanced at the medical data, not understanding what it was Doctor Franxx was looking at. She had never been explained what any of the displays mean, and in her young life they had, once they started to use her as future Parasite instead of a blood bag, never bothered to educate her in anything other than the mare basics of medicine. Some charts showed red warnings, others showed dull yellow or orange text or graphs. One of them updated rapidly, while others seemed fully static.

The girl knew he didn't really expect her to understand, either. Whenever this happened, he would call her over, scan her for something or another, then carry on. However, normally when he did this, the Stamen was dead or dying. 081 looked... well, he looked okay. She was sure he had one more ride in him. Probably.

"Right here," the scientist said, pointing at another graph she couldn't comprehend. "This is where we lose them. This is where they fight you and the FRANXX." He repeatedly tapped on the display, making a frustrated noise. "But why? I thought the last dose of elixir he received before the sortie would have fixed that."

She felt dizzy. Bone-deep tiredness, hurting from a few dozen bruises, bleeding from countless cuts and scrapes - Zero Two sighed and dropped cross-legged to the floor beside the bed. She hung her head and sighed. “Doctor, why am I even here?”

Whatever it was that the old man was mumbling about, it didn't matter too her. It had no bearing on wanting to get out of the damn suit, wanting to get into bed for a few days, wanting to maybe go out and fight more... she'd do anything else over being stuck in a medical room with the _doctor_. Those two things together never meant anything good for all she knew from experience. The sooner she could leave, the better.

She rubbed her eyes, feeling herself dozing off while he spoke. Rambled to himself, really. He'd never explain anything to her, anyhow, so listening in only frustrated her. She learned years ago to ignore him when he reviewed data of her dead Stamen. Nothing made sense, really, and she saw no point in it. It was white noise to her. If he had ever learned anything from all of this that would help her find a partner that can keep Strelizia going with her… he had never told her about it. She wasn’t even sure what it was they were looking for – only that with each dead Stamen, this was part of almost a ritual with him.

She lifted her head and looked up at the bed. From where she sat, she was unable to see the Stamen, or the doctor. All she saw was the equipment around him, the infusions pumping yellow blood cells and fluids into him, and the sides of the sheet that was thrown over him.

She felt nothing, knowing he was lying there. She closed her eyes again, trying to curl in on herself. What she did feel was being tired and worn. She simply didn’t care about anyone else. She never had cared about anyone, save one person, and she knew exactly why. Nobody cared about her. Why should she bother about caring for anyone else?

"You held yourself back, this time," she suddenly heard the old man say. When Zero Two opened her eyes, Doctor Franxx leaned around the bed and gave her that deeply concerning, studious look. She never liked it when he looked… interested. "You could have consumed him, but you didn't. Why?"

"Why? Why, why..." She blinked sleepily before closing her eyes again. With a shrug she said, "Didn't feel like it, that's why."

"Really?" He turned to look back at the display. "Is that so..."

"Hey, Doctor! I want to leave..."

"That's good," he said, more to himself than to her.

Leaning on her elbows on the knees of her crossed legs, Zero Two glared at the bed again. Maybe she should have just drained him and be done with it. Fewer questions that way. Although… this shortly after maintenance, Franxx would always call her in for testing, if she drained a Stamen in that manner.

There just was no winning in this. If she did her job too well, she was punished. If she did it too quickly, she was experimented on. If she did it too slowly, they reminded her that it was in her hands if she would ever see that boy again.

"Look, can I get out of this suit now? I wanna clean up,” she tried again.

He didn't answer. Which, well, she had almost expected. When he didn't expect her to talk, he simply wouldn't hear her. Never had heard her, honestly.

Zero Two groaned. He never listened. Nobody ever did when it came to her. “Doctooooor,” she whined, “I wanna leeeeave.”

“Yes, yes. Good. Because we'll be headed out soon."

‘ _Headed out…? Where to?_ ’ The girl lifted her head and struggled to her feet, fighting to not lose balance due to the monitor sitting on her neck. "What? Wh- What do you mean? There's a carrier-Richter out there; there's going to be tons more Klaxosaurs to take care of!"

He turned and looked at her, making her flinch. As much as she wanted his attention and wanted him to interact with her normally, she also hated it when he looked at her with that cold, keen interest in his eyes. It also put her back up like nothing else would. She squared up, leaning forward a bit and glared right back at him. ' _Do your worst_ ,' she seemed to say, ' _I can take whatever you are going to throw at me_.'

"With Code 081 being like this, and with this Plantation not having any backup Stamen you could use, we have to move, don't we?" She deflated a bit, her gaze flicking to the greying young man on the bed. While he looked like he was well into his old age, she knew him to be barely older than herself. "With that being as it is, staying here does not make much sense, does it?"

"They are just a few Conrads and stuff. And they have a mostly complete Squadron here, to help with the Richter. I can just Stampede it and-"

"Don't be ridiculous, Zero Two. A Stampede with hundreds of them, no solid backup, and no other Stamen to switch into, how long can you last before Strelizia will break down? Two hours? Maybe three? And then? We do not have a crane that could take this terrain well to recover you. It is out of the question," Franxx said, turning from her. He pulled up what looked like a communications console and started to check some files, ensuring that the Pistil lost all interest.

She leaned with both hands on the medical bed and stared straight ahead, unseeing. If they could stay, she could make a significant tent in the local Klaxosaur population. Not only that, her kill count could rise dramatically, and her next evaluation might show APE that she was doing as they told her. Even better, if that Richter was a carrier, there could easily be a thousand of these monsters right at the doorstep of this Plantation! All she needed was a way to direct Hachi or Nana here to agree that she was needed.

When Franxx next spoke up, he was again more to himself than to her, but this time, she paid attention. "If we get there in the next week or so, we should still be in time. That will give the specialists we have requested to arrive enough time to transfer here. The Richter out there won’t be your problem then, Zero Two.” The girl’s eyes widened, then she pinched them shit in disappointment. “And we've not tried a Stamen this young before, so maybe there is a better chance to link for you, too..."

She simply stared at him. Get where? Younger Stamen? She blinked, looked at the shock-grey hair of the one before her. How old had he actually been? She never bothered to look any of that stuff up…

"Zero Two, get here. Let me draw some blood."

Hesitantly, she approached the man and presented her arm. She dug her fingernails into the sleeve of her suit and ripped at it, exposing part of her pale skin to the him. He turned, picked up a syringe and pushed it to a vein, drawing his sample. She watching keenly as the vial filled, not even noticing she held her breath.

The colour of her blood had remained a deep, rich red. Her immediate tension vented slowly. She had known, on some level, that _of course_ she only just had her maintenance, and _of course_ just had her blood cleared, and _of course_ had not been in a FRANXX for that long... but she was always, always nervous when they started to draw blood. The first hints of purple or blue meant pain for her.

Rubbing her arm, she watched as Doctor Franxx eyes the vial he'd just drawn and walk to a wall console to slip it into a receptacle. More diagrams lit up and more data was spilled out. Not turning to face her, is eyes on the console and one hand stroking his whiskers, he hummed to himself tunelessly. "How have you been feeling, Zero Two?"

This was a first to her. She froze with her hand in mid-rub over her arm, her glare at the older man slowly melting into puzzlement. "Feel?" she asked. "What do you mean, feel?"

As he turned to look at her, his own expression seemed somewhat confused. "What _did_ I mean, I wonder..." He picked up his cane and leaned on it heavily for a moment, pondering. "II guess... have you been feeling more aggressive than normal? Or maybe sad?"

"What does that have to do with anything," she muttered, rubbing her arm again against the remainder of the sting she felt. "No…, nothing. Normal, I guess?"

"What does normal mean, though," the doctor followed quickly, his gaze piercing her.

"Bored," she replied quickly and without much thinking. "Bored and caged and I feel like I wanna do more. Fight more."

Franxx made a low sound that she couldn't place. Stroking his long moustache, he turned to look at her current Stamen again. "Did you use him like you did because you were bored?"

She stepped on the other side of the bed, looking down. "If he couldn't take riding with me, he's just weak. Weaklings die." It was a fact. It was something Papa had told her, many years ago. If she did not survive fighting the Klaxosaurs to find her Darling, then she was just so much refuse. If she couldn't find him, if she couldn't get to the point where she herself would stand and defeat them, if she... were to be without him forever? Then she was weak. _And weaklings do not find their Darling. Weaklings die_ , she heard him say in her mind again.

Doctor Franxx chuckled. "That much is true. The weak die," he laughed softly, "but isn't it a pity they _all_ die?" He turned to her, his one remaining natural eye searching her features. "Wouldn't it be nice to finally find a Stamen for you, my girl?"

She pressed her lips together. She _hated it_ when anyone from APE called her that. Because it wasn't loving, it wasn't the kindness of a parent. It was possession. It showed her that she was a thing and they were her owners.

As silence stretched on, he gently said, "Maybe you should spend more time with your next Stamen."

"Why bother?"

He seemed to hesitate before answering. "Because, Zero Two, I think maybe your link would be stronger if you did. Maybe even help keep them around after a third flight."

Both stared at Code 081. "He's dying, isn't he?" she finally asked bluntly. She knew what she was seeing, knew all the signs.

"Yes," the doctor replied gently. "He gave his life to Papa."

She scoffed. "He gave his life to me, you mean." The girl sighed again, leaning on her Stamen's bed. "Doctor, I wanna go take this suit off and just sleep."

He wasn't listening again. Absorbed in his own thoughts, pondering whatever it was he was interested in; her own interests, he own thoughts did not matter.

"Do you need me for anything else?" she tried again.

Zero Two didn't receive an answer. She glared at the old man, then, worried he could see it, turned her glare on the Stamen in front of her.

It would be kinda sad that he'd not make it, she thought. All things considered, he had been a good partner. He had given her enough control to ride Strelizia without too much hassle. And he hadn't picked fights with her or tried to run her life. All in all, it had been a good few weeks. Well, of whatever time they I had spent together. She had bigger problems with some of the previous ones. Not that he'd been prefect, far from it. She had some Stamen who would do anything to please her, just to be able to ride with her. Sadly, those burned out, too.

"Zero Two," he finally said with curiosity, "how did he get hurt like this?" Franxx lifted his head and eyed her, his mind still mostly engrossed in whatever question had been on his mind. "

"You know how, he was out there with me." She leaned forward, hanging her head a bit. "He rode with me and he couldn't handle it."

"But other Stamen do not come out looking like this every time," he said, pulling some bandages over 081's chest aside. Roughly where his heart was, a small, pulsing purple mass had formed.

Zero Two opened her eyes briefly and glanced at it. She had seen similar before, in colours with shades of red, to purple, to, once, a kind of reddish blue. His growth was small, smaller than most others, but it being there was likely to spell the end for him.

She shrugged. "Dunno. Maybe riding with a Nine would do the same thing to a Stamen. Did you try that?" she scoffed.

He didn’t reply, only turned to grab another tool and poke at the growth on the man's chest.

Zero Two waited a few minutes, watching dispassionately as he drew liquids from the growth, removed bits from inside it, and generally was being a cold-hearted bastard poking at a dying man. Not that she herself was much better, but at least she wasn't _poking_ him.

Finally, no longer caring at all if they would detain her for it or not, she turned to leave the room. Dragged herself towards it, more. The aches from bruises, cuts and bumps she had gotten while fighting started to knot up her muscles. As she reached the door and it clanked open, Doctor Franxx lifted his head and addressed her. "The moment he can travel, we will be on our way, Zero Two. Don't get comfortable."

The door shut behind her and she fell in with her guards. "I never get comfortable," she muttered.


	12. Chapter 12

Zero Two curled up tighter under the blanket of her bed. Sleep was elusive as ever.

Her mind filled with images of being a FRANXX, becoming an actual a machine, a weapon. Her body was the FRANXX, her mind was just the machine. And her very being was only to kill more Klaxosaurs. Over and over. Stretching into the distant future, when she would receive her reward.

This had happened sometimes after especially long days of fighting, and her latest day of fighting easily counted among the most stressful ones she had gone through since leaving the Nines. Days like this one left her mind raw and open for dark, hurtful nights. Such nights filled with her fear of the medical bay and the doctor; filled with knowing yet another Stamen was about to expire on her...

As far back as she could remember, sleep had never been a thing that came easily to her. Sleep was this time of night when everything that happened during the day came back to haunt her - and often haunt her in ways somehow worse, somehow much lonelier than it had already been previously. She would relive every cut made into her body, every time they removed or reattached something, every prod and poke and probe. Over and over, again and again. Dozens of times. Hundreds. Nights would not give her the peace to escape what happened. It only stated back a record of the actions to her.

At least when she was shackled down on one of those tables while they shot at her, cut into her... there was the feeling of a thinly gloved but warm hand holding her down now and again. It wasn't the same as she pictured a gentle touch could be from someone she’d _want_ to touch her, and wasn't anywhere as intimate as some of the times she had spent in private with the few stamen she had previously called 'Darling'... but it was better than her nightmares.

In those dreams, the faces hidden by metal plates came without touch. Without talking to her. She was utterly alone while in rooms filled with scientists, and doctors, and plantation commanders, and adult bystanders. There was nobody there with an interest in _her_. Just in her _data_.Just the thing she is, not the person she is.

With a shiver, Zero Two pulled herself deeper under the covers of her bed. She was all-too aware what any night after a long day of monster hunting or meeting the doctor would have in store for her. More so when it was both on the same day. She had no illusions about the dreams that would lurk at the corner of her mind, waiting for her to fall asleep.

The pinkette stretched out again, rolling on her back as she did. While turning, she saw her unused nightwear lay crumpled in a heap on the floor where she had tossed it. She numbly looked up as she lay with arms and legs spread out under the sheets, looking unseeing at the ceiling and it’s golden and orange illumination provided by the magma-lit city outside.

The sterilisation shower had taken care of removing the dried and crusted blood that had poured from scrapes and cuts all over her body. Her hair felt clean and fluffy again, fanned out over her pillow. Her scent was neutral, as much as it always could be within a short time after undergoing her medical maintenance. What had not been taken care of was the aching.

Riding a FRANXX put a large strain on the body. Getting locked into place and put into a paralysed state could wreak havoc on joints and already strained muscle. All anyone needed to throw into the mix was the mech being tossed about by charging Klaxosaurs, and not only would the feedback of the FRANXX cause harm; but even the generous padding on her saddle wasn’t going to be much help after a few hours of that. And while a soft bed helped ease these aches and pains a little bit…

An idle thought made the young Pistil wonder if any adults still bothered to sleep in beds. Was this a distinct room kept for her or special forces Parasites like her? It had not been the first time she had been in one like this on a plantation. The same view out of her window. The same layout of the room. With a scoff, she thought: _I am pretty sure the pillow was in the exact same place, too._

She longed for something sweet. Sweet things made even being hurt bearable. She still had a few of those lollipops stashed away, the ones that one Parasite here had sent to her. For a moment, she wondered if they'd want to get those back, now that their _senpai_ is all but dying right now. Then she realised that she hadn’t even bothered to remember their Code and gave up on that thought.

But… she still couldn’t sleep. Her overactive mind tried to show her mirror images of the future nightmares to come, while her body told her that not only was she banged up all over… but sleeping here also wasn’t _right_. With a grumpy noise, he girl turned from side to side again, bunching her blanket up around herself, reaching out to pull the pillow over her head.

Too soft. Too warm. This _bed_ was the problem, she thought.

Zero Two swung her legs out of the bed and got up, dragging her blanket and pillow along to a darker part of the apartment. It wasn’t often that she felt she needed to do this, but the day had been long, and as much as seeing a Stamen look like 081 had earlier… it wasn’t exactly something that got easier for her as time went on. The girl tossed both items to the ground, knelt and folded the blanket in half, and, pillow in hand, snuck under the two halves of the folded sheets.

Curled up on her side, feeling the familiarity of the hard floor under her body, Zero Two closed her eyes again. The girl hoped beyond hope that this was enough to change her dreams from endless streams of dying Stamen and blood-raining Klaxosaurs... into a snowy landscape.

* * *

Much as Zero Two expected, sleep had not been kind - not that the girl had much expected it to be such in the end. Not even with her fallback of sleeping as she used to.

Standing in her full ceremonial uniform with hat and greatcoat, she laid back her head and yawned hugely. Stiff strands of muscle in her neck protested as she felt her jaw creak in response to the most outward sign of her restless night.

Zero Two exhaled as she slumped forward, closing her eyes. Standing before any Plantation's Hachi and Nana was already annoying, but the ceremonies on the occasions that they took a Stamen away…. Well, there was always much more pomp.

The Plantation's Mayor stood with a small delegation on an overlook of the city, the finely scripted speech she had heard dozens of times now sounding as hyped-up and enthusiastic as it had from all other men who had delivered it before him. It never had moved her much, but right now, the grandeur of the declarations of pride in and gratefulness to the Parasites rang hollow with the years of knowledge of how nobody gave a damn when they died.

There were no ceremonies for the dead. Nothing like the opening party they threw for new Parasites to a Plantation in the Welcoming Ceremony. Sometimes she had seen Parasites fend for themselves, giving up some small bit of their time to grieve… but most didn’t. Emotions were dying out, much as the human race was, and Zero Two knew that even remembering the Codes of the dead was futile. At best, there’d be a record kept in some archive or network to recall the Codes along with some statistics.

Then again. Who knew, anyhow, with Adults. They never smiled or cried or laughed or screamed in anger. Maybe it would only be a report of _how_ they died, without mention of _who_ they were. She would not put it past any of them.

They barely cared about their wounded. Supported by crutches, 081 stood beside her. _Barely_ stood. He had been leaning on her as they walked out to the city to meet in this room overlooking the city. Franxx had insisted she do this, stating that it would show both her standing as a special Parasite, and his as a wounded hero… or some such nonsense. She didn't much mind or care either way. He was hers. To do with as she needed to fight Klaxosaurs. She knew her own worth, keenly, and she knew the relative worth her Stamen held. For her, for Franxx, for Plantations... and to Papa.

To APE, any Parasite was only as valuable as their use. She had seemed them recall both Stamen and Pistils back to the Garden for any number of injuries. A Stamen who lose his sight or hearing? Gone. A Pistil who was unable to use any of her limbs? Gone. Some things a FRANXX could compensate for, such a a Pistil losing hearing or eyesight, as it could overwrite these senses with its own sensors. But limbs were vital for both of them. And there were always new Parasites being raised at the Garden, so why keep anything _defective_ if it could simply be traded in?

Such a trade-in was happening right now. Hachi had just finished praising 081 for his willingness to resume fighting, but that he would no longer be useful at this Plantation in his state and that he had requested a replacement. Nana would soon join in the speech, adding to his worth, adding that he was special in his very way; how she had enjoyed watching him grow - the typical Breeder stuff she would have been scripted.

They didn’t even teach their precious Parasites anything about their world. Every Stamen she encountered to ride with her had different level of zealous fire on their heart, but past that, there was no curiosity, no independent thought, no will of their own. They were constructed little flesh puppets with minds barely filled with basic understanding of the world around them. And thanks to repeat treatments of yellow blood cells, hormone mixes and, in rare cases, even more drastic interventions, they had the machine-like emotional qualities of such constructs to boot.

The ceremony here just droned on and on. She had been tired before coming here, but no matter how well-delivered a speech she had heard a dozen times before; it still _was_ a speech delivered a dozen times before, and it was lulling her to sleep. She knew what Hachi and Nana were about to reply to the Mayor and how they would underline their need for replacement Parasites. She also knew that Franxx, as a representative of APE would chime in after that, stressing that to them, and to announce that 081 will be drafted in as a special forces Stamen alongside her.

Showing her protest in a slow, deliberate yawn, Zero Two drooped her head, shielding her eyes from onlookers with the visor of her hat. She was still hurting. She was still tired. The eternal artificial night of the city of the Plantation had not given her much rest, and she knew it might be a few days still until they left to the new place Franxx had picked out for them. Even sleeping on the floor had not helped last night. Imaged of a wounded and hurting Stamen followed her into her dreams, whispering to her what this would mean going forward; closer to her next sortie.

Ignoring the ceremony, she idly mused what the next location would be. Hopefully it was somewhere with a bath tub. Something she could just sink into and never come back up from. Oh, like a lake perhaps! She could just float in that and soak until she smelled of nothing but water.

Wait. Water does not have much of a scent, does it?

Maybe... maybe an ocean! She once read that oceans smell like, well, like the sea, really. A scent she never smelled before... that sounded exciting! They also tasted salty, she heard.

If it tastes salty, and smelled like nothing else smells, then bathing in the ocean would make her smell like she's never smelled before, wouldn't it? ...that sounded lovely.

She felt Franxx poke her in the back with his cane and she stood up straighter with an irritated 'Tsk' at the old man. It's not like she needed to pay attention. Nobody was even going to talk to her or ask her anything. She was just standing here to show off the uniform and underline the presence of APE. ' _Look at me, in my fancy uniform. Don't you feel better, now that you know Papa sent me to help?'_ Laughable.

The girl felt the old man lean forward into her personal space, making the hairs on her arms and neck rise. The scent of flesh fused to metal started to fill her nostrils, the scent that made her skin crawl because it was his own. Few scents hurt her like that one; few made her feel as defensive as swiftly.

The old man poked her again and spoke to her in a hushed voice, hidden under the pre-scripted lament of the Mayor. "Later today I want to know more about how he got hurt."

She snapped her teeth together with a sharp click and a snarl directed over her shoulder. With restrained anger she pressed out her answer through clinched teeth. "He was weak, I told you. What more is there?"

"I want details. _APE_ want details." As she sighed, she felt his cane poke her back again. She didn’t move, only hunched her shoulders more. With an irritated sound, the old man rumbled, "Write a formal report, and maybe we can stretch out your next Maintenance," he offered as one of his higher-value bargaining chips.

That sly old dog. Zero Two turned her head to look over her shoulder, making the Adult droning on stumble in his words for a moment. "Really?" she asked, her eyes shining as small, doubtful slits at the Doctor.

He merely nodded and stepped back, showing her that she had to go back into her position as well. She turned, standing tall and at attention now, a big smirk plastered on her face.

"Ah..." The Mayor had lost his place in his script and floundered. The near-predatory smile of the girl had fully wrecked his composure and he struggled to find his place; finally falling back on restarting the last segment he had delivered.

Not that she took much notice. A longer break until her next medical procedures? Hell. That was huge. That was something he rarely offered to her. She would quite happily talk into one of these dumb machines for a few hours to report everything about her last ride to Franxx and the others. She'd give them every twist and turn; every stab with Strelizia's spear - she'd give them the colour of her underwear, if she had anything fancy at all, if they asked for it. That trade-in was just too good to give up on.

She grinned throughout the rest of the ceremony, not bothering to even notice how uncomfortable this made most of the assembled.


	13. Chapter 13

It only took two days to receive the expected message from Franxx on her communicator.

"Get to the landing bay; we will be leaving today."

No frills and no explanation. A very simple, direct order, much as she was used to from the old geezer. She had been expecting things to move a bit slower, especially as 081 was hurt and the transport plane they would need to move Strelizia was one of the slower ones. Also, with Franxx, herself, and that mech on board, she was sure they would fly with an escort, too. That everything was sorted out and ready in under two days meant that the old coot must have known this was coming for a while already and had planned ahead.

She donned her Special Forces uniform like a knight would their armour. Each movement was deliberate, precise, and very well known to her. That her mind wasn’t in the here-and-now would have been clear to any onlooker. She was thinking about something quite a way away.

Her mind was on her duty, however. It pondered a situation a few kilometres out, and a few kilometres down, where a Richter Carrier was lying, immobile for a few days now. She had been keeping watch at all data she was able to get her hands on - while not lying around, bored out of her mind on the floor of her apartment. As much as she would have wanted some kind of excitement, nothing showed itself. No new swarms had appeared after her last sortie, and as much as she had hoped she could have gone out once more, there was no activity at this time except for the normal single scouts and smaller Moho's that the Plantation defence would shake off without the use of a FRANXX.

Zero Two had been keeping track of the movements via the reports she could access using her communicator. Being a former Nine came with a lot of S-Class access, provided it wasn't being restricted by overly cautious Plantation commanders. In the case here, they seemed much more worried about her actual physical movements over her ability to use basic technology and simple reading skills.

It was odd to her that the physical restrictions came so soon, in the case of this Plantation. Normally she only found herself being limited after an accident or another. Sometimes she just broke things. Well. Trashed them, honestly. But, man, when people pushed her buttons or tried to rile her up, of course she would react sooner or later. Or when a Stamen broke on her. That could happen, and reacting to that was normal, too. Wasn’t her fault she was a tad stronger than humans. …okay, a big tad stronger.

Zero Two shook her head as she grabbed her coat and hat. No use pondering that.

The Richter they had been monitoring out here had not moved at all, and she saw no point in trying to push Franxx when he was being as set as he seemed to be now. She knew she could manipulate her way around a number of regulations and stuff, but some things she knew to leave well enough alone. Trial and error had given her a basic map of _what_ worked and _when_ and with _whom_. And when the doctor had scheduled a transfer, her protests mattered little to nothing.

As she donned her hat and let her greatcoat flutter over her shoulders, she stepped outside her apartment doors... to find them unguarded. Surprised, she peered up and down the hallway, not seeing a single Adult anywhere near her. "Figures," she sighed in resignation, "that the day they ship me off, they let me roam." Shaking her head with a frown, she reached up to close the top two buttons of the greatcoat, letting it lie open over her shoulders like a cape by ignoring her sleeves.

She closed her eyes, took a few breaths of stale air and then let a small smirk play over her lips. Well. No guard also means she could _run_ as much as she wanted. Her eyes popped open with a glint of mischief. Sprinting from where she stood, she pumped her arms and legs, enjoying the thrill of using her body for once. Being caged up the way the kept her, no matter how pretty the cage was, meant her days were dull and boring and left her with too much energy to spend.

Her smirk grew into a grin as she realised, she would soon be leaving this place, and with the Transports often being military and open to the elements, she felt she would be able to get some proper, fresh air, too.

Running to the elevator, then standing in it, bouncing on the tips of her toes as the thing slowly crawled up to the administrative levels, the girl waved a sarcastic 'bye-bye' at the city. "See ya in a little while in a different place," she said with mockery dripping off her voice. "Wish I didn't have to see ya again anytime soon..."

While she was out with the Nines, it sometimes would be weeks before they’d be in a Plantation. They would travel via carriers like the one she expected today or fly directly between combat locations, hitting up smaller refuelling centres whenever needed - often cleaning them up and kicking out Klaxosaurs while they were there. Klaxos were driven to seek out magma energy, and any larger use of it would draw them in ever-growing numbers out at the front. Just the 20 minutes it took to slowly pump magma energy into a FRANXX would bring excitement as the Parasites took turns, running their machines to breaking points as they restocked and killed. Good times, really.

And those stations held no frills. Adults hated being in them; said they weren't pretty or some such nonsense. Something about comfort. She shook her head and huffed. Beauty was a fully stocked FRANXX and a herd of Klaxos to rush into for her. What else was there?

Well. Maybe snow. Snow was pretty neat.

The elevator drew to a halt, after having entered the main level she had been seeking to reach. The doors slid open, taking her to the huge open space of one of the rooms just along the outside walls of any Plantation.

Out in the landing bay of Plantation 73, she saw Strelizia, already cowering down into her standby pose, legs pulled up close, arms around the them tightly, head resting on the knees. Each FRANXX would assume this position for transfer, machine-assisted movement, and energy conservation - unless they were docked fully in a refuelling and maintenance bay.

A woman in the stringent uniform of APE command stood near the lift's doors, checking data on a digital clipboard; comparing information on it with that shown by her communicator. Zero Two eyed her from under the visor of her hat, noticing an actual face instead of a metal face plate... but not seeing the face of this Plantation's Nana. She looked... different.

Often, Nana and Hachi were former Parasites as well, used to showing their faces, but having survived long enough to stand out for other things than combat and kept around frequently as Breeders; Adults in charge of raising or educating children and teenagers in the Garden. Graduating from that, and depending on their aptitude and similar, they would often transfer into the command structure overseeing Parasites again. Her own teachers had been Breeders when she first learned to pilot, and she did benefit from the Pistil who had educated her on how to link.

The woman noticed the glance directed at her and looked up, a wide smile turning her eyes into half-moons. "Hello there. You are Code 002, I think?"

Lifting her head just enough to show her face better, the girl nodded without further comment.

"I will be travelling with you to Plantation Thirteen, 002. I am going to be the newly assigned Nana there. I am looking forward to travelling with you." She upped her smile by pulling her shoulders up just a small fraction, but even a cynical girl like Zero Two started to feel the disarming effect of this woman's friendly approach.

"You're prettier than the others,” she found herself saying.

The smile vanished at once, replace by puzzlement. "The others?" she asked.

The Pistil turned her head as she saw Strelizia being moved by the large mobile crane that would carefully place her in the belly of the huge transport plane just outside of the hangar. "Prettier than the other Nana's I have seen so far," she commented casually, as if talking to her FRANXX. "The others look like they bit into a pickled _ume_ most of the time."

Nana's expression was still slightly confused... then she laughed softly. "Thank you? I try to take things in the happiest of ways. This way, my Parasites will know at once when I am being serious - because I no longer smile." She waited for the girl to finally look at her again, then reached into her breast pocket for something. "Doctor Franxx told me that you like sweet things. Here." She held out a bag with a shrived, deep orange ... somethings.

Curiously, Zero Two stepped closer. "What is this?"

"Something I like to carry on me on long trips. It's dried, candied apricot."

The girl heard "candy" and eagerly helped herself to two of the flat ovals. "Thank you!" she said, smiling brightly. "You're not half-bad for a Nana." She stuffed the first one whole in her mouth, then glanced thoughtfully towards the ceiling as she chewed slowly. The texture was ...odd. While the piece of fruit felt tacky and soft on the outside, it was also a bit firmer there. On the inside, it was softer, but not creamy-soft. It was sweet, but not like a piece of hard candy. And the longer she chewed, the more flavour came through the sweetness. "Hm," she finally mused. "Different. I'd like it sweeter, I think, but this is nice."

"I'm glad you like it, 002. It's always been one of my own favourite treats." She looked back down at her clipboard, then pulled her communicator out and fixed it to the side of her documents. She started to work, apparently comparing data from her clipboard with something shown by her communicator.

Zero Two lost interest. Holding conversations wasn’t her strong suit to begin with, and if someone pretty much dismissed her by turning their attention elsewhere, well.

She squished and moulded the piece of candied fruit in her hand as she watched the snail-paced movement of her FRANXX. It would have been faster to just have her and 081 hop in and move her closer... but... After the meeting with the civilian leaders of the Plantation, her current Stamen needed to be carried back to the medical facility by two guards, as he was too weak to walk himself. The worsening of his condition could have delayed their flight even more, but after pumping him full of yellow blood cells, he must have recovered enough to at least travel.

Keeping her eyes on the men moving her FRANXX, she shifted, hunching down. Her greatcoat hung over her like a white wall and Zero Two pulled her hat lower into her brow, shielding most of her face from the outside world. "Do you know how long we’ll be flying to this other Plantation?" she asked Nana.

From the corner of her eyes, she saw the woman step closer beside her. "Well," she heard her voice from above, "pure flight time will be something close to half a day, from what I am seeing here, but because we will be a large transport flying with an escort, we will also need plan on making stops to make to refuel. Depending on what we encounter along the way, maybe more often than anticipated, too."

When she heard the estimated time, the girl lifted her chin from her knees "Half a _day_? How does that make sense? We're not gonna flay half-way around the world for this, are we?"

Nana chuckled. "No, of course not, and if you were in just a FRANXX, you could possibly make the flight in about half that time. But a FRANXX can fight, if it needs to. Our transport cannot, and while we will have fighters with us, the idea will be to avoid fighting at all cost. Our cargo is much too precious to risk that."

At that, the young Pistil pushed her cap up and turned to look at the woman beside her. Her eyes remained on her clipboard, but she slid her gaze down to give her a small smile.

Which 'precious cargo' was meant, the girl wasn't sure. The doctor? Her FRANXX? She herself? Someone or something else? Whichever it was, she wasn't sure she could be made to care. Just that it would be a boring, long, uneventful flight. Not exactly something she had been yearning for.

A gust of wind pushed fresh air from the outside into the hangar bay. Turning to face it, Zero Two inhaled deeply, trying to find any excuse to remain here just a few days longer.

Dryness, mostly. Old, sun-baked earth. Crushed rock.

There wasn’t a hint of the scent of blue blood anywhere in all of this. No hint of the metallic/organic mixture she knew as Klaxosaur. If anything, she smelled _death_ as it blew into the Plantation. Death created by the beings who now huddled away from it in the eternal nights of their dead cities.

"Ah, there he is," she heard Nana say. As she looked up, she saw the woman purse her lips before muttering near inaudible, "About time, too."

Pushing herself up to stand, Zero Two spotted the old man Nana had been looking for.

Doctor Franxx slowly hobbled off an elevator, followed by a barely-walking Code 081, a few attendants and a few guards. Both Franxx and 081 wore their Special Forces uniforms, though the heavens alone knew why _the doctor_ of all people wore it. She doubted he'd ever killed anything that wasn't strapped to a table and unable to defend itself. It was certainly only to pose and signify that he worked for the military and under APE... but that was it. Heck, even their assistants and security detachment wore muted versions of the APE uniform. None of them had so much as ever gotten a cut from a Klaxosaur, she knew.

As the older woman moved forward to greet them, Zero Two fell in with Nana; following her more out of boredom than anything else. Her FRANXX had only just reached the lip of the plane's cargo hold - if this was as fast as things were moving, she would be here anther damn _hour_. She sighed and let her gaze travel forward, watching the Doctor and her current Stamen approach. One limped from age. One from being too weak. They were quite the match, in her eyes.

The Pistil tucked her cap lower and slowed her pace. Tailing behind the woman now known to her as Nana while briefly wondering what her old designation might have been, she tucked on her gloves listlessly. She had finished that stupid report, or she thought she had, then she was told it wasn't detailed enough. She just knew during this long-ass flight someone would make her sit down and record more details. There had also been a few notes in the report that asked about how she felt at certain given moments.

What the heck did that matter for anything at all?

It wasn't like she spent time hanging around, pondering what she felt like when she was in the thick of it. She never even considered what her Stamen felt, what killing a Klaxosaur felt like, what being in a FRANXX meant to her. It was her duty, the job she had to fulfil. Feeling one way or another about it was useless, just as useless as worrying how her Stamen was doing. Either he was helping her stay linked to her FRANXX or he was giving up. What else was there to contemplate?

Her feet put her into a dead stop when her absent mind missed that she had nearly walked into Nana's back.

"Doctor Franxx. It would seem we ended up all making it on time," the female officer said in an upbeat tone.

"Nana, it is good to see you. How is Hachi?"

The girl crossed her arms and settled in to wait. She was oozing boredom, and she made sure of that. ' _We could at least chat while we're sitting in the damn transport_ ,' she thought and huffed a silent sigh. ' _Not like standing out here is any better than sitting around, at least we’d be comfortable._ '

The older woman replied to Franxx. "I haven’t actually spoken with him in a few weeks now. Getting here wasn't easy and I only arrived here to take a quick nap before boarding the next plane with all of you."

081 suddenly doubled over in a coughing fit. Zero Two dropped her arms and lifted her head, looking at the man, as one of the suited attendants took him by the shoulder and quietly addressed him. He looked in rough shape, and the mask he was still wearing fogged rhythmically with his quick, heavy breathing. The girl pulled her brows together. “Not yet,” she mumbled, “or if you have to, then do it where I don’t have to see.”

The doctor half turned to glance at the Stamen, frowned, and mumbled, "We should possibly board, so we can leave the moment that Strelizia is secured."

"Finally," Zero Two muttered and turned on her heel at once, facing the transport.

The huge air carrier wasn't the only thing on the docking bay ramp, but due to its size it was the only thing outside the Plantation. She counted seven two-pilot support fighters, two smaller troop carriers, and a large number of smaller ground-based machines going back and forth to bring cargo to the ten planes.

Large-scale transports like this one were rare, and often APE used them to make sure they could bring lots of different types of material or personnel needed in one go. Sometimes they would even make several landings and hop from Plantation to Plantation with goods to be ferried around.

Stark white and light grey with red accents, much like APE's uniforms for veteran troops, accentuated by the orange-golden glow of magma energy; these airships were a sight to behold, even for someone who had travelled with them often.

She felt someone beside her. She turned her head, saw it was the slightly older woman, and addressed he quietly. "How come the old guy is coming with us? Normally he just takes one of the APE transporters. Says they are more comfortable."

"I didn't ask him..." Nana said slowly. With a small laugh she added, "I guess I have been too busy trying to wrap my head around my new duties."

Zero Two slid her gaze to her side, not lifting her head. "New duties... so there will be a Welcoming Ceremony for Cadets?"

"That's right. Plantation Thirteen is going to get a whole new team."

They walked in silence for a while, crossing the large space towards the wide-open ramp.

Strelizia was currently being pushed and prodded to fit into the transport plane, and Zero Two lifted her head only briefly to watch before lowering her gaze to the ground again. "Plantation Thirteen, hm? One plus three is four," she muttered, spelling out to herself that it sounded like an unlucky number. After a few more steps, she turned her head to Nana. "You said a whole new team." The woman's eyes shifted away from her and she got the answer to the question she had not even asked yet. "So, the previous one is a full loss then. And I guess Strelizia is going to be the only backup during the ceremony?"

"As a former member of the Nines, 002, I don't think you will have too much trouble with that. Right now, Plantation Thirteen is also far from most Klaxosaur pathways, so we don't think we have much to worry about." She turned her head and looked up at the slightly taller girl. "We wouldn't let a Plantation in a dangerous area be this unprotected."

"I don't know, having a full squadron lost and having them all replaced with new Parasites, possibly even new Partners sounds pretty risky to me. But what do I know, mhm?"

Both stopped, facing one another. "I share some of your reservations, 002. But this goes back to your question as to why Doctor Franxx is coming with us. This is going to be a model, a new kind of Squadron. But I am not at liberty to discuss any details with you. You will need to see about finding out more from him, if you are curious."

"Curious," she mumbled, crossing her arms again. "Not really." She turned, looking behind them, watching Franxx and 081 slowly approaching with their entourage. ' _I just really want to get going, if I can't stay here and kill anything._ '

“Let’s head in,” Nana said kindly, “we can maybe snag seats near the doors and see more as we start and land.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We are one chapter away from the first arc closing and us touching the core canon.
> 
> Quick note on four being an unlucky number: In a lot of Chinese-inspired languages, the number 'four' shares a sound or word with 'death'. When I first watched DitF and heard the plantation was called 13, which adds up as 1+3=4, I actually expected a much, much higher death toll on part of our intrepid team...


	14. Chapter 14

It had taken over an hour to finally leave. Zero Two had lost count and simply found a seat close to the transport’s large sliding doors on the side to settle down and nap. Snuggled into her seat, her white greatcoat around her shoulders like a blanket, she ignored the urge to yell at someone, berate anyone who’d listen… Ugh! It was so damn unfair. She knew she could have done more here. Anyone could have seen that, no? Leaving so suddenly was just… dumb.

In all of this, however, she still managed to doze off, slipping into uneasy, dreamless sleep. As the doors beside her slid shut, she startled awake, looking around drowsily.

Sadly, nothing round here ever seemed to move swiftly, so they sat around, at least now climate controlled, waiting for everything else to be ready around them. While the loading bay prepared the take-off of their escorts, the transport itself simply sat and waited, much like its passengers.

She was so... so _bored_.

Surprisingly few people were in the 'comfortable' part of the plane. She knew they had a full staff for the transport itself, plus the personal medical staff that would travel loosely with her and the doctor. Then there were the engineers that came along with Strelizia, plus the personal they would take from this Plantation to the next… The passenger area up here could have every single seat filled, but except for the APE officials, nobody was up here.

She saw the metallic horn of Franxx' head gleam in front of her. Not for the first time she wondered why _he_ got to have a horn nobody commented on, but whenever she was around, horns suddenly were this big issue. Half his head seemed missing! At least she still looked mostly human, not like him.

He was chatting with Nana, who was standing near him when not sitting up front, her ever-present electronic clipboard in hand. The woman spoke quietly with him, comparing notes, or making entries or something. ‘ _Paperwork. Better her than me_ ’, the Pistil thought.

To her right side, across the aisle, she saw 081. He looked like someone had poured him into his seat, barely conscious, breathing heavily. Her mouth twisted as she looked him over. They should perhaps have waited longer after all. He looked ready to croak it any second like that. It wasn’t like she much cared either which way. Part of her preferred when the Stamen died outside the cockpit, really. Having a Stamen just kick the bucket in her FRANXX upset her. And... even more so if they were still linked and riding. Not something she ever looked forward to, as much as this sometimes had to happen, if the situation called for it.

She tilted her head, looking at the Stamen a while longer. Right now, he seemed to struggle breathing while he slept. "Hey, Doctor, are you sure this is okay? 081 isn't looking too hot. Maybe he needs more air or something?"

"It's fine. He is strong. But let's let him rest, yes?"

The disinterest from the doctor pissed her off. Everyone was snarky with her for ‘using up Stamen’, yet he was the one providing an endless stream of them. And unless he could squeeze data out of them he seemed to have no further interest in any of the boys he paraded in front of her. But then again, why should they fare any better than she herself did before him? That all he seemed to care about was graphs and numbers, hell, that wasn’t news. That was a side dish at dinner time – on the table and everyone knew how to reach for it. Still… At least for a proper human he could care just a bit more… Right?

She made a disgruntled sound and dug into one of her coat pockets for her last treats. She had managed to ration out two more suckers for this trip; and this one, bright red, would now have to keep her happy if nothing else could.

Zero Two unwrapped it, tossed the wrapper over her shoulder, and shoved it into her mouth as she stared out the window beside her. Surprisingly few people were on the platform by now, and she wondered if they really were the last ones to start.

Having watched the escort fighters launch a few minutes ago, finally the vibrations of magma energy flowing started to hit their own transport plane as well. ' _Finally_ ,' the girl thought. Crossing her arms, she leaned her head against the sliding door, looking out of the window. She watched the landing bay shrink away below them and let her eyes slide closed, the loud hum of the engines and the gentle vibration of her seat lulling her to rest.

Flying, when she wasn't being fed the sensory data from a FRANXX, was utterly uninteresting to her. Besides, flying anything _but_ a FRANXX on her own never gave her the same rush. Flying in a clunky transport was simply a means of getting from point A to point B and nothing else.

Zero Two played with her tongue against the lollipop in her mouth, feeling it clack against her teeth while moving the stick from one corner of her lips to the other. Sweetness put her at ease, always had, as long as she could remember. Sadly, coming by sweet things was so damn regulated by everyone. As if they knew how much she needed sweet things, they kept her from getting it whenever she wanted. They never took away what she managed to scavenge, but they would go out of their way to limit her menu when it came to the good stuff. Waffles. Ice cream. Cakes. She had some of these, but often she would go months without so much as a sweet roll. And no matter just how much she craved hard candy, finding the stuff was hard. Especially when Adults seemed to not consume them, and she rarely got to interact with Parasites, who seemed to be able to request these things.

With a sigh she opened her eyes and glanced outside and found they had breached the clouds. They moved at a steady pace now. Here and there she could see an escort fighter pop up amongst the clouds around them, then dip away as they kept moving. They roamed the skies around them, expanding their active scanning while they were on the move.

It was a nice enough day, all things considered. No thunderstorm, not even rain. She kind of liked rain. It made everything just smell nice. Clean, somehow, in a way that washing never did. As much as sun-baked, dead earth reeked, rained-on rock seemed to just put her mind at ease. It was one of the few true pleasures that were her own; something others had no input in over her. It rained, so she felt good.

Not that Zero Two thought most of the ones who would work on maintaining the Plantations from the outside or even in loading bays shared the thought. With as shut-in as most Adults were, chances are that simple pleasures didn’t even register any longer.

An idle thought passed her mind. With how Adults were always chasing pleasure and their own goals... what made some of them leave Plantations to be in the supporting forces of APE? Why bother being a pilot in a plane, if you could get hooked into a machine back home and dream of being a bird themselves?

The girl guessed that even amongst adults there would be those who felt like her: If you have the chance to fly yourself, that thrill would be bigger than that in a dream, wouldn't it? Or maybe they wanted the thrill of possibly dying when they faced off with Klaxosaurs... Seeking pleasure, seeking thrills, that's all Adults were about. So that would have to be the explanation, wouldn't it? She bit into her sucker and chewed up the hard, sweet core. ' _Yeah. That's how it would be._ '

Her eyes slid shut again, and it wasn't long before Zero Two was drifting off to sleep.

* * *

A muffled klaxon woke Zero Two. Sitting upright, training and instinct made her try to reach out to her FRANXX sensory input feed. When that didn't work, she shook the cobwebs from her mind and pressed her nose against the window to her side, sending her hat to lie crookedly over her horns. "What happened?" she snapped.

"Nothing you need to worry about, Code Zero Zero Two," one of the faceless assistants said to her right. She turned her head and saw them sitting beside 081, holding him steady while keeping his mask on.

Only now did she notice the vibrations of their transport plane being a lot more prominent. They flew some kind of sharp maneuverer, and the stress of it made for a bumpy ride.

"We're just getting out of its way," Nana added from a front seat, in a much friendlier tone. "See, over here?"

“Its?” Zero Two whipped her hat off and dropped it on the empty chair beside her, shuffling to the front row of seats. She leant over Nana, holding on to her shoulder as she peered past her. Both woman and girl watched, as half-way across the horizon, a hulking blue-and-grey _something_ breached the clouds, rising in a dream-like manner.

The flat front, like a massive wall, dragged behind it a somewhat oblong body, tapering out to the back like a falling drop of liquid. At the back, four enormous paddles stuck out in different directions. Here and there the sunlight glinted on points for some reason that was not visible at the distance they were at. What seemed to be a large U-shape seemed to hug the construct from the back, slowly turning slow rotations around it.

"What the heck is that…?" the Pistil breathed.

Behind her, the excited voice of Doctor Franxx spoke up. "A Super-Lehmann-class. I was kind of hoping we would get to see it!” He had gotten up and stood beside the pilot, holding onto the back of their chair and the ceiling above. “These are so rare, many of them have their own names, you know. This one is one is Peres-Rho, to be exact. Aaah, I wish we could get closer..."

"That is just not going to happen, Doctor," Nana said, sounding exhausted, as if the topic had come up several times already. "You know they turn aggressive if you approach them."

"I know, I know... but I would still _like to_."

Zero Two gave the Doctor a weary look from the corner of her eyes. While she could only see the robotic side of his skull, she felt his excitement; his thirst for knowledge. Usually, it was not a good time to be around him. But usually when she saw him like that, she was strapped to a table.

Nana sighed and shifted, patting a hand on the girl’s hand on her shoulder to get her attention. “That hurts a bit… ah, thank you. Doctor,” she said less kindly, “the whole point of our flight route and the fighters flying in escort formation with us is make sure we stay away from it and don’t accidentally bring it to any near-by Plantations. We can see it from here just fine.”

"Screw just looking at it. Can we shoot it down?" Zero Two felt the itch Bringing down one of those things! How much would that further her? How much notice would APE take if she could- "Like, how do you kill one of those?"

The pilot of their transport huffed. It sounded like he was trying not to laugh. The girl shot a glare over her shoulder at him.

"You don't, my girl," the Doctor answered, drawing her attention. "You get close to one of them and then you simply die. That's how they work. They are like fortresses, armoured and equipped with impressive weaponry. However, Lehmann-class seem to be very specialised Klaxosaurs. Those which fight, are deadly when they do. This kind of Lehmann, and we know of twelve of them, are not aggressive. They try to avoid Plantations and other human-made buildings. They are also never attracted by our use of magma energy, at least as far as we have been able to find out."

"Eeh? That's wild," the girl muttered, leaning further towards the window. "So, we never tried to fight one?"

Nana gently pushed the girl past her towards the window, sliding over to make room for her. "I don't know... I just know that fighting a Super-Lehmann needs an army. And we're just a transport with escorts." It felt like her answer was still directed more at Franxx than the girl.

Their plane started to dive, sinking below the clouds. The Pistil made a displeased sound as they seemed to sink into mist. "Man, that's it?" Disappointed, she squeezed past Nana again and trudged back to her seat. She leaned back into her chair, her eyes looking at the thick fog outside as they were deep in the clouds. "Boring."

The assistant who had helped 081 stood and gave her a haughty stare. "I rather be bored than dead." His gaze wandered from her eyes up to her horns and his face twisted into a look of disgust.

She grabbed her hat and plopped it back on her head with a scowl at the faceless Adult. Yeah, she had horns. And she could punch him right through the bulkhead of this plane if she wanted to. _And_ she possibly single-handedly saved this plantation from significant damage, too. But I guess one could not outweigh the other, could it?

She dug her last sweet treat out of her pocket and eyed it longingly for a while. "How much longer are we gonna fly?" she asked with a bored mewl.

"We are not going to play the Are-We-There-Yet game this time around, Zero Two," the long-suffering voice of Doctor Franxx sounded from in front of her.

"I'm simply asking how long we'll be sitting around," she muttered darkly, turning to look back out of the cloud-covered window. "How long was I asleep?"

"A very blessed six hours," the old mans voice sighed.

Nana turned in her seat, then got up and slipped in the seat beside Zero Two. "It will be another ten hours or so. We need to make sure we avoid being tracked by the Klaxosaur you just saw at all cost."

The girl let her chin sink to her chest with a sigh. "That's so long still," she whined.

The woman smiled. "How does a snack sound then? There's a small kitchen area where we can get food and drinks." She rose, watching the Pistil with an expectant smile. "Let's go?"

Zero Two didn't move at first, just shooting the woman some side-eyed glances. Why was she being so friendly with her? What was the deal with that? Normally, any Nana and Hachi she met saw her as a threat to their Squadron and treated her in a near-hostile manner.

She turned her head fully, but saw nothing but a patient smile on the woman’s face. Finallly, the girl stood and nodded. "Alright, I'll tag along."

"Good!" Nana turned and walked past the rows of seats to a narrow winding staircase.

On a small platform, overlooking the main freight bay, they turned and walked into an area with machinery Zero Two knew in passing. If she felt like it, she could get warm rations from these. Adult food, too, if she wanted to poison herself.

"Let's see..." Nana rummaged about the cupboards for something. "I know the last transport I was on had something to nibble on around her somewhere..."

Zero Two watched the other woman from underneath the visor of her stiff cap. It felt maybe a bit like this Breeder was trying too hard with her, but on the other hand... she had been kind. "You travel a lot then?"

"Mhm?" She stopped, looking at the girl. "Oh, not really. This is only my third time as a Parasite Caretaker." She flashed a smile before resuming her search. "I’m taking turns between being a caretaker, officer, and a teacher."

"Eeh? That's crazy. Some Plantations are pretty far away from the Garden," the girl said in amazement.

Nana chuckled. "Yes, and travelling by Plant can take days and days," she said, speaking of the small round pods that normally were the main transport between different Plantations. "I think my longest journey was two weeks in a tiny Plant capsule… oh?" She pushed some small boxes around before brightening. "Aha!" With a pleased laugh, she pushed herself up on her toes and reached into the back of a cabinet. "I knew there would be something around here."

While the woman inspected the package the she had just procured, Zero Two leaned her back against a wall and turned her head to the secured freight. Strelizia still crouched, held down by magma- strengthened restraints.

"Okay, looks like we have some rice crackers here. Would you like sweet or salty ones?"

The girl didn’t turn her head. "Honestly... I just wanted to get out of that cockpit. I’m not hungry."

"Ah." She heard the woman open her package of pilfered snacks and felt her move in to stand beside her. She was quiet for a short while, then resumed speaking in a low voice. "I'm sorry it's hard. But ... even for regular Parasites it's not easy." She crunched on something. "Though I am sure being with the special forces makes things harder."

The girl turned her head away from her FRANXX and stared at her boots. "What do you know about the special forces?" The question sounded abrasive, even though she had not meant to say it like that. “Like, as an officer, what do they tell you?" she tried in a lower tone of voice.

There was a moment of stillness as they both just followed their own thoughts on the question. There was the quiet munching beside Zero Two, and the noise of staff moving around the hangar floor. There was her own fumbling with the wrapper of her lollipop in her pocket. There also seemed to be a breath of hesitation before the woman turned to address the girl.

"Well, I will admit that I do not know a lot. And very few people within APE do, as you surely know..." She waited for the girl to react, and she did with a small tilt of her head. "But if you are curious what I know specifically... There are, of course, the Nines. Controlled by APE directly, not under order of any Plantation, not under directive of any commander within APE. They can be requested, but chances are you'll not get them unless you have something really big on its way to your location."

She mused, taking a bite of her pilfered snacks, while Zero Two hummed, now glaring at her booted feet. "Mostly correct," she agreed, "but you forgot the part where most of them are cruel, spoiled sadists."

"I... never met them, so all I know if pretty much what the manual would say, heh, if there was a manual on them. They show up, often without a Plantation Central Command knowing more than 30 minutes in advance. They may do something, or just refuel and then take off again. They are not to be directly approached and if they have orders, they will be transmitted when they arrive."

"I guess," the girl growled.

The woman shifted, then continued. "As for the other forces, well. They are Parasites who manage to survive. No matter where they served, they normally have outlasted a few dozen Stamen or Pistil, and are now considered hardened veterans. Generally, they have some traits that make them unstable to become a Breeder, meaning they lack something to be a teacher, caregiver, or commander."

The girl nodded but didn't comment.

"Special forces have more Stamen than Pistils, too. A Pistil is often lost when a FRANXX is damaged beyond salvageable state by Klaxosaurs. For a Pistil to turn Veteran is such a rare feat that Veteran Pistils generally are sent to the front lines much faster. Veteran Stamens will find suitable Pistils who volunteer to join the ranks, often knowing they change partners every other sortie or so..." Her voice tapered off. She shuddered, then held her head for a moment.

Zero Two lifted her head when the silence stretched on. "What?"

"N-Nothing... just a headache. I should perhaps go back to the passenger cabin and sleep some more." She turned to throw her snack's packaging away.

The Pistil cocked an eyebrow but nodded to the liaison officer as she walked by. It wasn't exactly like she cared or didn't care if someone was hurt or uncomfortable. In the end, it wasn't her job to play nursemaid or to feel sorry for anyone. That kind of nonsense never got a Klaxosaur killed - but it frequently got plenty of idiot parasites killed; idiots trying to be heroes or helping out their team. It never ended well, and it wasn't how the Nines things done.

Quietly she pushed herself away from the wall she had been leaning against and strolled to the metal balustrade overlooking the transport's floor.

Before her she saw Strelizia. Curled up, arms around her legs, closed, still faceplate pushed into her mechanical knees. She looked small like this. Vulnerable.

Playing with the wrapper of her lolly again, the girl frowned. She felt like her FRANXX right now. Small, Curled up. Tied down. If only there was a way to break free from all of this. From APE. From being told where to go, being dragged there against her will even if she had other possible fights waiting...

She shook her head and pulled her hands from the pockets. Making sure her hat covered her horns, she strolled back to her seat upstairs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And this concludes Arc one of Missing Pages!
> 
> As said in the beginning, I will turn to my Persona 4 fics for a while now, so the next batch of updates for this fic will be a lot slower.  
> This slower update schedule will not mean I'll stop writing here. After all, now the 'easy stuff' happens for a while, as I get to stick closer to the show. x3


	15. SECOND STORY ARC

Hello everyone.

Finally started to have time for writing again.

We're about to start the second arc of Missing Pages here. I am leaving this chapter in place with this chapter name to ensure folks know where to jump to if they wish to find sections, as the chapters do not have names in this fic.

Thanks all!

~WishStone


	16. Chapter 15

Zero Two opened her eyes muzzily. The plane had been shaking violently and rocked her out of her slumber; kicking her pilot senses into overdrive and flooding her with adrenaline the moment she realised she was in motion.

Seeing that she was still in the passenger area of the transport, she turned her head to look outside. She saw a few wispy clouds and stretches of dead, burnt earth through the patchy white mist. Reds and ochres as far as the she could see. No greens. No blues. Nothing hinted at life. Nothing hinted at this transport flying anywhere near a plantation, either.

The girl sat up straighter, adjusted her hat, and tried to stretch out while remaining seated. A soft “Hrm~” escaped Zero Two’s lips as she felt her muscles give into relaxation.

Special Forces Pistil Code 002 slumped into her seat with a pleased sigh. That stretch had felt wonderful. She doffed her hat for a moment and ran her hand over her long, pink hair. Her horns felt slightly achy, having worn the inhibitor for hours. She hit the button to release the contraption with a quiet beep and placed it into her hat on her lap. The relief of pressure was immediate, making her relax her back and shoulders noticeably. Her pale, slim finger gave both of her crimson horns a quick rub.

In front of her, the metal horn of the half-mask old man Doctor Franxx wore shifted as he addressed the Pistil without standing up to look at her. “Zero Two, put your inhibitor back on. You are in public!”

Frowning, the girl put the inhibitor back in place. She didn’t care about being seen without clothing, why did he think she cared if someone saw her without that damn thing on?

"Rested?" The friendly voice of Plantation 13's future Liaison Officer Nana reached her from the front of the passenger area. Zero Two simply raised an arm and gave a brief wave.

The pink-haired girl wasn't good about waking up around people. In general, nobody was around when she slept - and people being around her when she came around normally meant someone was about to hurt her. As a child this simply was a sign that some scientist was about to experiment on her. As a teen, it often had preordained physical abuse as part of what some thought she needed to ‘toughen up’ to be a pilot. In some cases, it has been an assault directed to her being a developing woman. As a direct result of her life having never deviated from this pattern of painful awakenings, Zero Two’s senses went into overdrive the moment she woke.

Pulling her legs up, the anxious Pistil curled up in her seat, wrapping her arms around her knees as she resumed gazing outside. Dwelling on the past was a waste of energy. Dragging up these terrors would only worsen her mood as she was trying to wake up and compose herself in this small transporter cabin with several strangers around her. Sure, the memories and having learned from these painful moments kept her keen, and it will continue to keep her alive; but dwelling on it was a waste of her strength. That was what mattered. The girl had to stay alive. She had to keep killing for her given purpose.

She let her mind drift. Nothing she saw outside the window as their heavy transport flew through the sea of clouds looked like it needed her, in her function as a Special Forces Parasite. The girl had flown over areas where the steppes below seemed like a black and blue seething mass filled with small Klaxosaurs. She had been hurried to Plantations under siege by several Gutenberg-class monsters at once. And, of course, she had stood alongside the other Nines at the front lines, wading through enemies of all sizes; enemies from single Richter-class to countless Conrad-class herds. Places where normal Parasites would perish in minutes – _that_ was the landscape she was used to seeing when she arrived at a new Plantation. Danger, peril, monsters seemingly poised to overwhelm the large dome-shaped, mobile cities. She wasn’t used to the world looking so... plain and boring.

Out there, all around her was... nothing. Sure, they might be underground, but then the ground normally showed signs of collapse. Motion. Drift holes. Unless this flying carrier and its escorting fighters were about to pass a mountain range that hid an abundance of enemies, the girl could not fathom why she would be brought out here. Not when the Plantation they were at last had been preparing for an actual threat.

In the far distance was what looked like a mountain cut in half - maybe one of the early sites of tectonic energy gathering. A hurried but failed project before magma energy was discovered.

Zero Two's expressive green eyes stayed with the landmark, hungry for something; anything to look at that wasn't just red-brown steppe.

The vibrations of their transport changed. Trained as a Pistil, the girl narrowed her eyes and pressed a hand against the bulkhead beside her, seeking confirmation of the feeling in the pit of her stomach. "We're speeding up?"

Her first reply to this came from outside her window, in the form of the two fighters dropping in from their front before joining into the new formation with the carrier plane.

From the front row of seats in their cabin, it was once again Nana replied. The woman in the stern grey A.P.E. officer uniform appeared to be an adult woman to the onlooker. She was wearing reddish-brown hair in open waves, which tussled slightly as she turned to look over her shoulder at the younger girl. She regarded Zero Two with her friendly, dark green eyes as she said, "We will be arriving at Plantation 13 in about an hour or so. But first, for a short while, we need to rise above the cloud cover. The Plantation has reported aerial Klaxosaurs on this route, and the Plantation’s Hachi wants the fighters to have better cover as they scout around us."

"Why's everyone so damn scared on this trip..." The Pistil shook her head and turned away from the window as it started to only show the white-grey of clouds now.

"Well, for one, we carry several V.I.P.s on board," Nana continued, feeling addressed by the rhetorical question. "Then, we carry a custom FRANXX. Building these and replacing them is a very large drain on resources. We only build them for very specially selected Parasites, and-"

In a monotone voice, the old man in front said simply, "Thank you, Nana."

The tall girl stood, leaning over the back of the seat in front of her and glaring at the back of the head of Werner Franxx. His horned, metallic half-mask hid any facial expression he could have had from the girl. "Why're you shutting her up? Not like _you_ ever explain anything to me."

"Because you don’t need to know these things." She saw him turn his head away from her, possibly to exchange a look with the woman, who glanced at him, and then slumped a bit into her own seat. "My apologies, Doctor."

"This is bullshit," the pistil muttered, sinking back into her seat. She whipped her hat off and glared at it in her hands. "I'm really just an experiment to you, aren't I?"

There was a moment's pause before the old man answered with an even voice. "You are also the best pilot the Parasite program has ever created."

' _Also,_ ' she thought to herself, ' _so what I first said was_ also _right._ ' Zero Two didn't need to say it out loud. Others didn’t need to know the nightmare she suffered through on a regular basis. The experiments, the exchange of bodily fluids, the biopsies while she was very much awake and in pain… It was not something she would ever show to anyone willingly. Just as she would not show anyone how much she loathed the good Doctor, every single one of the Nines, or A.P.E. as a whole.

She was needed for only one thing: killing Klaxosaurs.

Just exterminate them. One by one. As many as she could.

Then, one day, when she did well enough, when she delivered the kills A.P.E. demanded of her; maybe then she would find her missing piece again.

She could be happy again.

Happy. She frowned at that thought. She wanted to feel happy. She wanted to feel like she did then again - not that the girl remembered much of that feeling.

Too many nights she found herself curled up on the floor in an ever-changing but ever-the-same rooms in one Plantation or service base or another, just pinching her eyes shut, trying to remember the taste of His red blood in the snow. Trying to remember _his_ warm tongue on her cold, blue-blooded knee. Trying to remember the sound of _his_ voice as _he_ spoke to her. Read Their book to her.

As _he_ promised to marry her.

This had been so long ago now that she was forgetting things. He was a boy, she knew that. And _he_ had short hair. And _he_ smelled _so_ good. Of soap, perhaps. Or of medicine? Or maybe it was just what _he_ smelled like. Nothing else had smelled like it.

She couldn't forget. She shouldn't. Not _him_. Not ever _Him_.

With a grunt of annoyance at herself, Zero Two stomped on such thoughts. Thinking about her true _Darling_ was something too precious to waste while she was feeling angry. Something too fragile to try and remember while she was surrounded by those who would seek to hurt her. Those who had tried to take _him_ and her memories of _him_ away from her.

The girl stretched out to lean over the seats beside her, turning her head to look at the injured Stamen sitting strapped into his seat.

Code 081 was in poor shape. Zero Two had known this when she had excited the Strelizia after their last ride, of course. He had tasted bad in those last few minutes before she could disconnect from him, and there was that scent of build-up in his blood.

The female Parasite was no idiot. She knew it was a Klaxosaur build-up. Franxx had shown her the results. Had told her about some of it with other Stamen.

And she knew it was her doing. Riding with her caused Saurification, which was poison to humans. She truly was the partner-killer in that regard. And for her, well, it made her feral over time. Chipped away the bits of Human that were plastered onto her.

But where she could be fixed, even if these procedures were often just an excuse for more testing; it seemed humans could not be. She had seen what happened when Franxx had tried. And she was sure the damn doctor would do more experiments with this one - either before he died or soon after.

"How's he holding up?"

The Adult who sat beside the Stamen looked up from his lap, turned his face plate to her for a moment, and then ignored her again. "He's hurting."

"I see he's hurting; I’m not an idiot." She grunted and pulled herself closer to him, leaning up on the armrest of the aisle seat, her feet pressed against the wall panelling under the large window of the transport's passenger seating. "I mean, will he be good for another ride, or is he a goner?"

The face plate snapped to her quickly, and she heard an angry gasp. "And _if_ he dies, whose fault is that?"

The girl simply stared back. "Dunno. Why don’t you ask the Doctor who said he was strong enough to ride with me as a Pistil? None of the Nines ever got sick, did they?"

After a prolonged 'stare' from the faceless plate, the Adult simply turned away from her and focussed back on the electronic clipboard in his hands.

"So? How is he doing, then?"

"Stop being a bother and settle down," Doctor Franxx said with the slow sigh of the long-suffering. "Provoking the nurses is not going to make me angry, girl."

Nana got up and headed to the back of the passenger area, giving the girl a quick glance before moving on.

Zero Two sighed and sat back up. She rummaged around the inside pocket of her greatcoat and pulled a sucker out, popping it into her mouth. The sweetness teasing her tongue gave her immediate relaxation. As long as she could remember, sweetness had made her feel loved and cared for. She did not clearly remember why any longer, but she remembered that sweets were something precious to her, something she needed to be careful with. The girl’s favourite were hard candies. Bonbons, lollipops – things of that nature. If it was sleet and clicked against her teeth when she sucked on it, she felt taken care of.

They were still above the clouds, but the cover started to scatter, allowing the pink-haired girl to see dashes of the dead earth dotted throughout for kilometres below. She ignored as Nana asked the Doctor if he wanted a drink. Ignored when the Pilot conferred with the fighters surrounding the transport for an approach. She only barely registered when Code 081 fell into a coughing fit and several of their attendants exploded into activity on his side of the aisle to make him comfortable.

She knew that was all they would be able to do at best. He was old, old for a Stamen, anyway, and the Saurification spread rapidly. He would be in unbearable pain before long and just die. If the Pistil was lucky, her Stamen would die _after_ her next mission, whatever that would be. Propped up by stimulants and pain killers, he could possibly hold on for a few more days or so. Zero Two hated it when they died while they were linked.

Something tickled her nose and she frowned. Something smelled. And it might have been her; it might have been him. Gazing out of the window, the girl sighed and said softly, "I wanna take a bath..."

"Not again." Franxx' voice sounded tired now, the electronic voice synthesiser picking up to amplify him. "Show some self-control for a change."

With a frown, she pushed back her sleeve and sniffed her wrist. _Something_ smelled. If it was her, that could mean having to undergo another procedure. But why so damn soon? Then again, depending on how far gone 081 was...

She pulled the lollipop from her mouth and leaned over the empty seat toward the centre aisle. "Hey, how do I smell to you?"

She tried to catch a whiff of her partner, but Nana appeared, a modest cloud of soap and fragrance announcing her before the special Pistil could get a good nose full.

From the seat in front of her, Franxx said sternly, "Let him _rest_. He's drained after that last battle, still. You saw the state he’s been in all day."

Slipping back into her own seat, Zero Two licked at her sweet absent-mindedly. Franxx and Nana spoke, but she ignored them. Nothing informative had come out of Doctor Franxx all day, and Nana seemed to want to confer with him about something.

Besides, the only question she had was: Why didn't they give her Stamen stimulants earlier? They could have just pumped him full of the stuff, like they did before with others.

Maybe, just maybe, he was further gone than Franxx had been letting on. Maybe too much of the stuff would do Code 081 in. Or maybe Franxx thought letting Code 081 sleep it off now or tough it out during the flight would be somehow good for the injured man?

Zero Two just didn't know. She didn't understand the old coot, or his methods, or the way he treated other Parasites.

The girl felt a dip in her stomach and looked outside. The transport had started to descend some, and it slowly broke through the higher cloud cover. Below her, for a few kilometres around, she saw the pockmarked landscape of magma facilities. Massive circular craters settled with semi-automated machinery dotted the landscape from just below her all the way to a mountain range in the distance. A dead river snaked past the production facilities.

Rivers could lead to oceans, no?

In a book, some years ago, Zero Two had read that saltwater had its own scent. Could it cover the stink that sometimes would cling to her?

"Nana? I have a question."

"Yes?"

"Does Plantation 13 have an ocean?"

"An ocean?"

The girl swirled her tongue around the comforting sweetness of her treat. "Yeah. I wanna swim in some clear ocean water."

Sounding amused, Nana replied, "I'm sorry to say that there's no ocean on _any_ plantation. The saltwater would poison the forests of the Birdcage."

"Eeeh?” The Pistil frowned and turned her head towards the seat in front of her, seeking eye contact with the woman. “But things live in oceans. I read about it."

"Well..." The female officer went silent for a short while. "Maybe in some parts of the world there might still be a bit of an ocean where that could still be true."

Zero Two knew that, too. Just as the ground was a dead dustbowl; the oceans were a poisoned death trap after evaporation of waters, sinking sea levels, climbing salt content, and massive pollution from the early stages of the magma energy development.

"Won't a shower do?" the woman followed up kindly.

 _'Not really. Showers are never enough...'_ The girl didn't say it, of course. She would hide how the showers that bathed her body in chemicals and ultrasonic waves removed the stink from bacteria living on the human skin… But they could not purify what her blue blood did to her body. Evasively, she replied, "I'm in the mood for a swim."

"We will be landing soon," the pilot suddenly announced, "Please sit down and buckle in."

"Understood!" Nana turned in her seat and glanced back at the young Pistil. "Let's talk about this later, okay?"

The Special Forces Pistil settled back into her seat and raised her hands thoughtfully. She pushed the glove of her dress uniform back and gave her wrist a tentative lick. It wasn't thick. It wasn't invasive. But her keen senses knew that she tested like _them_. Like a monster. Nothing about the layer of human they had grafted onto her could hide that from her keen nose and tongue.

Turning back to the window, she sighed, "I hate how I taste."

The steady hum of the transport, coupled here and there with the whine of a fighter passing them, tried to lull the Pistil back to sleep.

Paradoxically, sleep had been a companion of hers since they started to remove her from anyone other than officers and scientists. When she returned from a ride in a FRANXX, she could pass out for days. And whenever Zero Two was not needed to ride out, she would waste her time in a stupor; dozing her time away whenever she was on stand-by without anything to do.

In Garden and at the frontier outposts, she could still find books and things. And she had tried more than once to bring some back with her. To own something again. But any time she acquired a possession, _they_ took it. No books, no magazines; nothing would stay with her for long. And once her impeccable memory translated symbols into words and knowledge, it seemed like they started to try and starve her of these things.

Of course, by then it had been too late. She remembered consuming the book that was the one shared possession she had with her Darling. Devoured it to keep it safe. Finding a hint of _his_ flavour here and there where _he_ had turned a page, making her weep. But after she started to be handed around from Plantation to Plantation, changing pilots every few sorties, the only thing she could keep her hands on was her communicator. And the only thing ever in there that she could access were reports. Team sorties. Klaxosaur movement. Magma status of the Plantation she was on. The status of the docked FRANXX.

Not exactly something that would keep her mind engaged and active. Not when most of the strategic information that could be concluded from the raw data meant little so long as she was stuck inside the damn dead cities and unable to go out and fight.

And she was so, so _bored_. "Hey, what does 'landing shortly' even mean? I can't even see the Plantation yet!"

Nobody replied.

With a huff, the girl turned back to the window. They were still losing altitude and she was now able to see more details on the sites they flew over. None of the machinery below seemed active. The drills and pumps were still. No small vehicles passed anywhere between drill locations. As a Parasite, she knew what this most likely meant.

Spent. The site had been left abandoned after they found it no longer yielded the needed amounts to power a Plantation.

Of course, that did not mean it yielded no magma energy at all. Dozens of times the Nines needed to find one of these to refuel. She knew how to activate most sites and tap into them for a FRANXX in case of an emergency. Compared to a Plantation, a FRANXX needed only a trifle of energy, and after about thirty minutes of refuelling, it would be good to go for half a day or so.

But it fell in with the wastefulness humans had always seemed to embrace. Sites like the one below her possibly still held several years’ worth of refuelling for a FRANXX but could not sustain a Plantation for even a week. So, they considered it empty enough and just discarded it.

"Morons," The Pistil huffed.

She closed her eyes, pulling her cap lower over her face. Might as well snooze until they landed.

* * *

It was an hour before the transport finally landed. Briefly, at first. The pilot and service technicians were kicking the passengers of their little trip out in the blasting heat of the large landing pad while they waited for the landing crew to clear up space in the indoor bay.

The pink-haired girl hung back, waiting for everyone to leave. Inside that transport was her FRANXX, and she felt like she needed to make sure it would arrive safely. It was hers, at least in her mind. Her main weapon in the war she was tasked with. And her only means of regaining her true Darling.

"Hey, Nana, I could just jump in and take it inside myself."

"No, Code 002. Code 081 is not up for that much stress." The woman seemed preoccupied with her note board, mostly ignoring the girl.

"Nobody said anything about him..." Zero Two stated flatly.

That got her some attention. The older woman's head whipped to her. "What are you saying?"

Poking a finger into her ear to kill an itch, the Pistil shrugged. "Can always do it on my own."

"Stampede mode? Out of the question!"

"Come on; it would be so much faster..."

"No!" Nana took a deep breath. "No, and that is final." She turned back to her electronic clipboard and shook her head.

The hulking form of Code 081 emerged on the boarding ramp, walking on his own two feet. He looked slightly dazed still, but the coughing had stopped, and he seemed at least awake enough to walk by himself for now.

Shortly behind him, Franxx emerged with four adults that Zero Two only knew as ‘his assistants’, though she had rarely seen him ever speak to them. Unlike most other adults, most of their faces showed. They wore suits. Not uniforms, nor lab coats… suits. The only think hiding their face where oddly shaped constructs over their eyes, which she did not understand. It still covered them and made her ask herself if they even still _had_ eyes. Or just a camera, like the Doctor had on one side.

' _I wonder... did any of you ever poke at me? Cut into me?_ ' She shook her head. Not like that mattered.

"So, what will I be doing around here?"

There was no reply, yet again.

The Special Forces Pistil pressed her lips together and tried to move next to the Doctor. “Hey, Doc. Why am I needed here?”

Nothing. The adults formed into a group and started to head out of the baking sun and into the loading bay. Franxx and Nana headed the group, followed by her current Partner, surrounded by the assistants.

She trailed her Partner, keeping her head low and her thoughts to herself.

There was some useless banter about the Doctor and Nana knowing one another for a long time once more, but the girl ignored most of it. Without a care for the bodies of anyone, she could see him grope at the older woman. Through narrowed eyes she observed him act as if anyone else was there for his needs or entertainment alone. Narcissistic, self-indulgent, dumb old braggard of a man. And for all his smarts and skills, he still could not put worth onto another human being - never mind into Zero Two.

Machines, now those were special to him. While his creation, the Parasites, only had numbers, he created FRANXX in his own name; and of those, some he created had their own proper names.

She didn't know enough about A.P.E., or why Papa worked with Franxx. She barely knew about the members of A.P.E. aside from Papa and the Vice... But she was assured frequently that her kill count was being tracked and pleased Papa.

In the end, the Pistil needed the damn Doctor. She needed his FRANXX... She needed to work with them. It was the only choice she had to finally reach her goals.

One of the assistants pulled past her left and she lifted her head. Were they all in front of her now? She gave a quick count and, yes, Franxx, Nana, 081 and four assistants were now all walking in front of her.

A smirk stole over her lips. Before they had landed, she had seen that this Plantation's Birdcage held a large body of water. Either Nana had lied, or what looked like a blue ocean was right here, on this Plantation. All she needed to do, was reach the top.

Zero Two stole a glance behind her. Nobody was closely following her, and all adults she saw were busy securing the transport, removing cargo, or helping with refuelling the massive airship.

The group that had travelled with her – well, travelled with _Doctor Werner Franxx_ , anyhow - walked through several automated security gates. The Special Forces Pistil expected them to head into the escalators that would take them to the subway or the inner city of the Plantation to change, rest, or prepare for the inevitable meetings.

They entered one of the three large central hubs. Escalators criss-crossed the large, artistically lit cylindrical shaft, some four hundred meters across. All around the walls of the large tube were hallways winding in a slow spiral, with paths moving away from the hub like spokes on an unseen wheel.

Stepping on the gently roiling steps, one of the assistants glared over his shoulder and hissed at her, "Keep up with the group."

She didn't even lift her head to acknowledge him. He turned back almost at once, anyhow, and she simply waited.

Gradually Zero Two started to lengthen her distance, lifting her feet high and walking backwards up the escalator step by step. So absorbed in their little chat was everyone that they did not notice the girl was soon almost five meters away from them. She shrugged off her greatcoat, allowing her more mobility. She climbed over the middle rail onto the escalator heading back up, climbed on the handrail, gave the others another quick glance, and then jumped.

With impeccable timing and balance, she dropped onto a floor below, rolling to catch her momentum, and stood in one fluent motion.

Each Plantation was like the next, and she knew their commonly shared layouts by heart. She circled around the ring-shaped passage toward the interior elevators; dropped her greatcoat over the railing as she heard shouts of surprise from the escalator, almost all the way across from where she stood now.

With a smirk over her shoulder, Zero Two plucked her hat off her head, swivelled it around a finger, and let it drop behind over her shoulder as she entered the hallway that would move her even further away from the group she had arrived with.

Once out of sight, however, she started to race. If they were smart, they would use her wrist scanner to block her movement by her Code or I.D. Until then, however, as a member of the Nines, she had full access and free movement.

Regular guards were unlikely to block her movement, and until this Plantation's Hachi got involved, she could possibly move with relative ease. Knowing this, she slipped into an elevator and directed it to the Birdcage’s central hub.

As the small box started to move without protest or alarm, she smiled the first real smile in the last few hours.

Even with the high speed of the central elevator system, it still took a few minutes to reach the Birdcage’s central hub. When it slowed down and finally stopped, the girl carefully excited the lift and found... nobody. No guards, none of the assistants, nor any medical staff waiting to catch her here. They had apparently not yet started to track her properly; else she would have expected someone to welcome her by this point.

Without an escort for the first time in years, the Pistil did not waste any time. With a gleeful smirk, she darted outside the administrative building and onto the footpath on a narrow bridge. There was some water out front, but it was very little, and she was sure this was not what she had seen from two kilometres up in the air above the Plantation.

That large blue blob had been central-ish, so she raced until she found the glass dome lowering above her, turned her back towards the downward slope, and ran away from it. That would get her as central as possible inside the bird cage - and hopefully toward water.

Zero Two had seen images of Birdcages, and she had flown over a few. But she had never been inside one.

As she ran, filling her lungs deeply with air, she found it tasted... good. There was no scent of the dead earth. There was no tang of dead rivers. There was no taint of Klaxosaur. The ground felt like it gave under her feet as she ran between trees. There was moisture ticking her nose as she inhaled deeply. Everything seemed more... alive. Vibrant.

Zero Two knew of cages. She knew of being locked up. It had been most of her childhood, after all. And yet, this place coldly called the ‘Birdcage’ on top of every Plantation seemed more vibrant and thrilling than anything she had ever been near. Why would humans not have anything like _this_ in their towns? The air smelled so good, the ground felt so nice. If she stretched out her arms while running, her hands slapped cool leaves. Lush, green leaves like the ones she had only ever seen in a few outskirts of former towns, fighting to survive.

Before her, something shimmered through the trees, and moments later, her running feet carried her out into a clearing, nearly dropping her into a large pool.

Her feet slowed down, carrying her along the rim of the water. Was it an ocean, finally? She had never seen one. Only read that they were large and blue, and sometimes green, and salty. This certainly was large, and it had looked blue from above, though here, from up close… it did not appear quite as blue or green.

As she looked ahead, she spotted a tree close to the water growing in a curved manner, as if it had tried to jump into the water before stopping itself. Leaning almost horizontal over the water, she decided it would do for her needs.

Zero Two would swim. And she would get rid of her clothes for that, like when she washed herself. It got rid of any smells better when she undressed, after all.

Without much ceremony, she unzipped the one-piece uniform dress, kicked off her boots, and placed her clothing onto the tree trunk one by one. As she stepped out of her underwear, she heard a small cry, followed by a flutter from somewhere behind her in the woods. Turning to look, she saw nothing but more trees.

The Pistil shrugged, turned to the water, and stepped inside. "It's cold," she murmured to herself, surprised. The outside world was baked to dust by the sun, but here she was, standing with her feet in cold water.

She slowly waded in deeper, hissing at the new but pleasant feeling of cold water deep enough to first rise over her knees, up her thighs, and across her tummy and back. With a soft laugh, Zero Two turned and let herself fall backward the rest of the way with a splash. She surfaced, spluttering water, her smile still present. Her light pink hair flowed around her upper body like a silken veil, tickling over her back and shoulders as she drifted in the water. Kicking her feet, she found swimming to be quite easy in this ‘ocean’.

Parasite training included all kinds of simulations. Once finished, all Parasites could scale a cliff face. Could crawl through narrow ventilation tunnels. They had dropped Zero Two without a map in the middle of a frozen wasteland to navigate to a set point.

And she had learned to swim. Though, in her training, she would always wear her Parasite suit. Here and now, the girl could feel it directly on her skin, and the way she felt her body react with goose flesh fascinated her.

This was no ocean, she thought. The water was neither clear nor salty. But it was the largest pool of water she had ever encountered. Submerging herself, even diving would be easy in this!

As she ducked her head under once more and opened her eyes, she could see some life here and there, where the water had not become brown and cloudy from her wading in or splashing about. Fish darted everywhere. Plants seemed to grow, liking it here.

Zero Two felt her body drift up, and she swam, her face down in the water and her eyes open while gently kicking her feet. Her arms were at her sides, and she enjoyed the feeling of the water gently flowing around her body as she moved slowly.

There! A fish darted close by her and she tried to turn to chase it, but it was gone before she knew it. ' _Oh, I see; this is a game to you, eh? Don't try it... I am great at catching small things...!_ '

She resumed swimming, remembering the times she had tried to catch.... what was it again? A small animal... she had tried to... to eat it...

The vague details splintered apart in her memory and melted away. Whatever it was, it may not have been that important. But it was proof to her that she could catch this fish if she wanted.

The pink-haired Pistil turned her head sideways, took a deep breath, and went back down again, swimming slowly. Her lazily kicking feet made hardly a sound, hardly a wave, and she let her body drift through the pool, enjoying the feeling of her natural heat being pulled away by the crisp water surrounding her. She exhaled slowly, allowing her lungs to feel the bite of her escaping breath. Allowed her body to burn with urgency, telling her she was being foolish and would die.

Despite the feeling of looming unconsciousness and death; Zero Two felt so unbelievably alive.

Languidly turning over, she swam, now with her chest up, her arms pulling her backward through the water.

Then, suddenly, a ticket on her back. Another. And then a small, quick current!

Diving without a splash, her feet kicking wildly under the water's surface, Zero Two gave chase. She was quickly catching up to the small fish, barely longer than her own hand. It was trying to shake her off by darting suddenly to the left and to the right; she simply chased it further. Noticing the ground suddenly climbing closer the girl reached forward, ready to use her hands to propel herself up; when the fish zig-zagged before her. With one final thrust of effort, she pushed herself up and out of the water from behind and below the fish, feeling her teeth sink into the back of the small aquatic creature, grabbing a hold on it as she shot up and out of the water in a massive splash.

She had caught it! It wriggled in her mouth! She held it pinned with her fangs and felt its sweet, soft flesh against her lips and tongue; felt the pointy ends of its dorsal fin tickle the roof of her mouth as it wiggled in desperation! Somehow, chasing down this fish and catching it had her heart racing more than any Klaxosaur fight had before. She felt energetic, elated, proud – all in the span of the second it took her to shoot out of the water; her prize trapped between her choppers.

...But, as she opened her eyes, still flush with success and excitement, she came face-to-face with a human.


	17. Chapter 16

As Zero Two shot forward, through the cool and slightly murky water of the lake; she felt herself slash into the air, a smile curled up over her fangs, pinning the just-caught fish down. Triumphant, and holding her prize, the pink-haired girl opened her eyes - shock slowing down time for her.

The smile was gone in an instant and her eyes widened in shock for a moment before she reigned her feelings in. The special forces Pistil had been careless and forgot that she possibly had pursuers on her heels.

Where the swimming girl had surfaced; where she had just sprung up from the water, stood another human, who hurriedly stumbled several steps away from her. Caught in the thrill of the hunt, she had not even noticed his legs being right in front of her. After a quick blink to remove the last sheen of lake water from her eyes, she recognised it to indeed be just a boy, not an Adult.

He appeared to be a few years younger than she was herself, wearing a dull greyish Parasite uniform. Shaggy black hair hung in tussles about his head, almost clashing with his bright green-blue eyes. He was to his thighs in the water when she had emerged, and she had clearly startled him, as his own eyes were wide open.

Several tense seconds of silence fell between them. After having backed a few steps away from the naked girl at first, the boy had stopped and simply stared.

Where Zero Two now stood brought her to about four steps from the boy, who had leaned away from her in surprise.

Her eyes quickly scanned the human. Short, slightly shaggy black hair. A neatly fitting Parasite Stamen uniform. Light greenish-blue eyes, which were slowly being swallowed as his pupils widened the longer they stood facing one another.

It had only been seconds, but she had nearly forgotten what she had been doing just moments prior. The fish struggled yet again, a silent protest at being caught and held. Just a few short moments ago, Zero Two had felt a high from catching the creature. Now it was just a distraction.

Ignoring the fins tickling at her, the special forces Pistil observed the human. The boy still stood, shell-shocked. He had not said a word, not made a move at all - but his eyes had changed somewhat. Where she had at first seen shock - something she was used to whenever humans saw her horns - the expression had morphed into something ... different. As his eyelids had slid back into their normal position and didn't show as much white from surprise or shock; his pupils had now widened noticeably. He looked odd to the girl as she regarded him. His eyes had widened, his mouth stood open in a small O, and she noticed his breathing had slowed down to slow, shallow huffs. This was not how humans normally reacted to seeing her.

 _Why isn't he saying anything?_ _Was he sent to find me? Did they say I was dangerous or something? Is he afraid of me, too, like everyone always is?_

Never breaking eye contact, Zero Two turned her head slightly to her right and spat the struggling fish from her mouth, lifting the right hand to give her lips a dismissive wipe.

The Klaxo-girl curiously stepped forward swiftly and pushed her face close to the Pistil’s, carefully sniffing the scent near his cheeks and neck as she moved from one side to the other. She saw he was unharmed - she could feel his breath ghost over her own wet skin - but he stood frozen until he breathed two words in apparent awe: "Those... horns..."

Zero Two leaned in further and lifted a tentative hand to touch the boy, maybe give him a push; but froze at his words. Her eyes searched his and she found the boy’s green-blue gaze moving over the two short red horns peeking out from under her messy, wet hair. He seemed to trace her head and face with his eyes; and for some reason, she felt embarrassed. Nobody ever looked at her like this before, and it nudged against her steel-core reserve.

Normally, humans would shy away from her horns. Disgust, hatred, fear - all of these would show in their faces. But this boy showed her something she normally saw when she was getting ready to ride with a new partner. An eagerness. Almost a longing.

His gaze moved across her face, sought her eyes, slid back up to her horns, returned to her eyes, then trailed down her neck toward her chest - when he suddenly struggled to life.

Stumbling backwards, he stuttered: "N-N- _Nake_ \- _Argh_ , NO, I mean-" His took another step back and whipped his face away from her, pinching his eyes shut for a moment. "I'm sorry!"

"What's with that?" Zero Two sighed and leaned back again, "I thought you died on me."

She put her emotional walls neatly back into place and walked around him, returning to the shore. If he had found her, and if he had let anyone else know, it would not be long before Adults came looking for her here. And while she did not care if she wore clothing or not, it was a bit chilly, and she would prefer to not track around the plantation in the buff when she was carried off again.

As the naked girl stepped on land, she heard the boy speak up behind her. "You... are you a Parasite?"

The still-dripping girl did not reply. Didn't feel like who she was needed any discussion.

He spoke up again. "Why were you bathing out _here_?"

Zero Two ignored his questions. None of the answers she could give would satisfy him, she was sure. So, instead, she distracted him. "It's so weird. I heard that ocean water is salty..."

Feeling water drip over her body from her long, wet hair, the girl gave her arm an uncertain lick. If anything, it tasted... earthy. Not at all like the liquid that was provided in the City quarters she resided in, or in the pouched-up rations on board of a FRANXX. Why would water in an ocean be salty if it seemed to not be anywhere else?

"This..." The boy, still standing where she had left him, lifted his voice a little. "This isn't an ocean, you know?"

She made a face and turned to the bent tree that held her clothing. "Yeah, I know that much." Pressing her fingertips thoughtfully to her chin, she added, "But this is the most ocean-like place I have ever encountered." Her eyes turned thoughtful. _So, the size of the body of water has nothing to do with if it gets salty or not?_

Zero Two looked down at her stack of clothing and frowned. Someone had been messing with her stuff.

The still-naked girl turned her head to face him, her hands resting on her hips. "Weren't you going to swim, too?"

"...Huh? Me?" He blinked at her owlishly. "No... I'm good..." The Pistil slowly headed to the shore as well, moving slightly away from her as he did so.

"Oh, yeah? But it feels so good..." As Zero Two watched him, his eyes flitted over her body and his face turned a little pinker. With a small smirk starting to light up across her face, she continued. "You were staring so hard just now... I thought you might have wanted a dip into something yourself." She was pleased with the innuendo, and she had little doubt the boy wouldn't understand.

"Th-That's just because..." He stomped on land; his blush gone at once. He gestured at her clothing behind her, then at her. "I saw you swimming and thought it was beau- I mean... I saw you swimming and was surprised to see anyone in the water. But then you were suddenly gone! I thought you were drowning; so, I jumped in to help you! That's why.... why..."

The boy's eyes slid over her form and he stuttered to a halt. Turning his body away from her and looking at the ground, the girl caught the dusting of pink back on his face. "S-Sorry, but could you please put your clothes on? It’s really hard to talk like this."

Zero Two still looked thoughtful. Cupping her left elbow with her right hand, thoughtful fingers rested against her chin once more. The boy was behaving strangely. Not that she hated it, precisely, but it was odd. As if he had problems seeing her the way she was, while at the same time wanting to... _Ooooh... I so that’s how it is..._

The girl snapped her fingers, turned to face him, and then pointed at him. "I get it! You're just getting turned on! You’re thinking naughty things right now!"

His head snapped back up and he turned to look at her again. "What? Where'd that come from all of a sudden?"

With her smirk still firmly in place, all Zero Two did was move her arm to point slightly further down from his chest, to his outthrust hands, to the fist clutching something lightly pink peeking out between his fingers.

He frowned, then followed her pointing finger to his fist, opening it. Unmistakable, it was a small piece of underwear.

"WHA- N-No! NO! Y-you're misunderstanding this! I didn't mean…I -!" He closed his fist once more, as if to hide the panties, and then thrust it out to her.

With eyes like saucers, she watched him scramble to find a stuttered explanation. As he started to launch into stammering of trying to see if her clothing had a Parasite ranking because it looked like no uniform he knew; her lips started to curl up.

She caught the first outburst of laughter with a huff between her lips, but then turned away from him, laughing out loud.

Zero Two had not seen anything this funny in ages. Holding her tummy, almost doubling over she turned away from him, unable to contain the laughter that exploded from her. "That face you're making! Hilarious!" She ended up with her back to him, leaned over slightly, giggling loudly.

The feeling she had when she swam earlier came back.

Free. Light.

 _Alive_.

 _I'm actually having a good time talking to someone!_ she thought, her mirth slowly ebbing into happiness.

As Zero Two straightened, something he had said struck her. The girl turned, looking over her shoulder back at the boy, who had flushed bright red again. Lifting her eyes up to him, she said slightly coquettishly, "But... you really jumped in to save me, didn't you? It's appreciated." A smile flashed across her face unhindered and she pinched her eyes shut with the wonderful feeling that came with how it made her feel - knowing someone would have come to _help_ her. "Thank you!"

"Ye-Yeah... Of course." He looked away again, taking a side-step toward her. "Didn't mean to hold on to this; I wasn't thinking."

She plucked her panties from his fingers and held them out. Another giggle bubbled up from within her. "You got them moist, you know?"

"Sorry," he simply mumbled.

"Well, it's not too bad." She turned back to the tree and wanted to start dressing, when behind her the ground rustled and crunched. Looking back over her shoulder, she saw him sit on the ground, his flushed face behind his hands.

Humans could be oddly peculiar about showing their skin. Why would they feel one way or another about their bodies? And why place so much import on their clothing in general?

As he remained silent, she sighed when starting to dress. She stepped into her underwear, pulled on her socks and boots, then pulled on her one-piece uniform.

Zero Two glanced at the boy again, then walked behind him for the final bits of her dressing-up. Holding her inhibitor between her lips, with her back toward him, she started to zip up her uniform. Clothing was one thing, but her inhibitor would draw his eyes to her horns again, and she wasn’t sure she could bear to see his gaze show the repulsion she saw in other humans when they noticed the bright red peaks jutting out from her head. He had noticed them before, and reacted to them… but…

"So, that uniform..." the girl finally said, "You're a Parasite as well, then?"

"You're wrong."

She pulled her silky, pink hair out from under her collar and fanned it out over her back. “You’re not? So, you don’t pilot, then?” She took the inhibitor from her lips and glanced over her shoulder at him.

The boy picked up a rock and tossed it up in his hand a few times, as if trying to get a feel for how heavy it was. "I can’t pilot," he said gently. "It seems I’ve lost the ability." He caught the rock once more and ran his fingers over it in a fist.

Zero Two lifted her head and looked straight ahead into the woods. She had heard of this before. Sometimes, Stamen or Pistils would just burn out and no longer function; the Parasite handlers would then try to pump failing pilots full of medication when this happened. Sometimes during combat, a Pistil would get injured from the feedback a damaged FRANXX gave her; and it happened frequently that those girls could never form a link again. It was a pity, but the special forces Pistil had gained more than one Stamen from his Partner losing the ability to link with a FRANXX – just as she had lost a few potential Stamen from no longer being able to establish a link with her or anyone else after an injury.

Zero Two knew she had managed to bring Stamen back into functionality with a few... less conventional methods. Methods that would absolutely land her in hot water if anyone were to carry those means back to any adults.

The girl patted down her red Special Forces uniform as the boy continued behind her.

"I do not have a place to belong to here. I’m just not useful anymore." A plash announced another rock being thrown into the lake.

It felt like her stomach flopped deeper into her tummy. It was a nice feeling, but a weird one, too. Zero Two’s hand stopped brushing her uniform down, the other clutching her horns inhibitor tighter. The empty hand now rests over the odd feeling. It felt… it felt like there was suddenly a hole, that then slowly filled with warmth.

With a shake of her head, the girl his behind her normal, gruff persona. "Huh, what's with that?" She looked at the inhibitor in her hands and turned around.

Zero Two ran her fingertips over the white metal arch. Soon after she had been presented to Papa and the leadership of A.P.E., Doctor Franxx had fashioned her first inhibitor. The first few were terrible constructs; nearly caps that rests on most of her head, fully encasing her horns. It was then that they quickly noticed that whenever she fell feral, her horns would change in size. The little girl’s horns could grow in length and width up to a half a centimetre per second and very effectively broke thee first dozen or so caps he built for her.

Each time the accursed thing noticed her mood shift dangerously, it would feed her an electric shock, and the child struggled with the fearsome power that was her violent emotions… and the fear of the next shock. She could not comprehend why sometimes there was more pain, and more pain, until the pain was just gone again – when the contraption broke.

By the time her inhibitors were simply clasped to her horns and fed direct pain via pressure into her horns, she had started to grasp simple language and learn basic social norms. Ideas such as controlling her wild urges started to form, and over time the inhibitor simply evolved to be a reminder to her that she needed to hold her own powers down. She was very much stronger than any human, and her inhibitor would serve both as a reminder to her to be mindful… as well as a weapon to those who controlled her.

Sadly, Zero Two had grown to depend on the damn Thing. She used it to get reminders when she was about to lose it – and these reminders often prevented her from being hurt by an Adult in the end.

The girl looked up from the thing in her hands at the boy. He felt alone because he could not fit in. And she… Her hands grasped the inhibitor tighter.

"That would make you just like me, then." Zero Two saw the boy’s head move to look up and twist where he sat to gaze back at her. "I’m always alone myself," she continued with a small smile, "thanks to these horns of mine." The Pistil glanced ruefully to the ground as she slipped the inhibitor on and felt it grasp on to the two pointed protrusions in her hair. She didn't want to look back at the boy, but maybe the pain of seeing him realise what a monster she really was would shake off the strange, floaty feeling in her stomach.

Gravel crunched, possibly as the boy shifted. “Your horns are… I like them. They are…” He mumbled something about cute and attractive, but Zero Two could not catch it fully. “I like them,” he muttered again, slightly louder.

Elation. Embarrassment. Something that made her want to cry, but also laugh at the same time. _What is this feeling??_

Zero Two stared at the back of this Stamen she had only just met by chance and felt drawn to him like she had not felt to any other Parasite she had met before. She wanted to walk to him, to touch him, to taste him, to run her horns all alongside him – but, no. This was getting silly. The Pistil knew better than to let her emotions run wild like this. Before long, her inhibitor would kick in, she just knew it would, and there was no happy feeling from _that_ happening.

For now, Zero Two would ignore these feelings. She could always ponder them later, if she really felt like it.

Standing tall, pushing her fists to her hips, the girl addressed the boy directly. "Listen up. If you don't belong here, then build a place where you _do_ belong. It’s that easy. You can’t wait for the approval of others."

He twisted around further, looking at her with the hollow hint of hope in his eyes for the first time in the last few minutes.

The girl smiled and continued. "You dragged your partner down? They are gone? But you still want to ride, don't you?" She waited for his hesitant nod. "Then find another one. Time has taught me that there is always another Partner, always another Stamen, always someone else to try to team up and ride with; trust me."

Doubt entered his eyes, and she saw them dull. That feeling in her stomach repeated. She had preferred laughing with the boy. She wanted him to not look... look so _defeated_.

"Nobody would want to partner with me.” The boy mumbled solemnly. “I could never just randomly find someone to agree-"

With her smile growing further, she lifted her hands, making grabbing motions as if she really were a child's boogieman approaching him. "Well, if you can't _find_ someone, then _take_ someone!" Zero Two closed the distance and clutched his shoulders. "By force, if you have to!"

Something was happening to her now that she was this close again.

The girl felt how her heart hammered in her chest. Something in his wide-open, surprised eyes drew her closer. Her eyes focussed on a bead of sweat on his temple and she drew closer to his face. Inhaling his scent, her heart leapt; and when she ran her tongue across his cheek to catch the bead that ran along his jaw, she shuddered.

Zero Two's eyes fell shut as the shiver ran across her skin, into her belly and back up her spine.

Startled, and carried by her tackle, the shaggy-haired boy fell over backwards from his awkward position, falling into the shallow water. He had tried to catch himself, pressing an accidental knee up between her legs. She had only barely managed to release him and caught herself with her hands on either side of his face.

 _What the heck? What_ is _this?_

Tasting him felt ... good. Like nothing she ever tasted before. Like... wings, unfurling for the first time to lead her into a new life... Like... _Like_... "Eeeh?" she said to herself.

 _What_ IS _this??_

"Your taste makes my heart race," she quietly admitted into the still moment that followed. The girl curiously rubbed her cheek close against his as she pushed herself up, stealing another sniff of his scent. She ended kneeling slightly above him; her butt comfortably leaning up against his knee. "It has a kind of spicy heat to it that sticks to the tongue." Zero Two’s hands moved, now pushing against his shoulders, as her thumb drew a small circle on the uniform near his collarbone. “A dangerous taste. I could want more of this..."

"Wh-What are you ...?"

Zero Two smiled down at him and his confusion. She knew humans couldn't taste others like she could, but right now, she wished she could share the prickling feeling on her tongue. And perhaps he did, too? "What? Would you have preferred a kiss, perhaps?"

"A... kiss?"

The Pistil smiled knowingly at the boy. Realisation lit up her eyes. "Ah, yes. Someone like you wouldn't know about that, would he?" She felt herself drawn in again, leaning closer to him, her cheek rubbing against his once more as she let her lips brush his ear as she spoke. "It's a very special thing," she breathed, as if she were about to have her personal ritual to man a FRANXX with the boy.

Zero Two rocked back, pushing herself up to her feet. A step back carried her to the shore and out of the shallow water. She smiled down at the boy, who still blinked at her in confusion over the last two minutes.

Elation coursed through her veins. The prickly sting of this boy's flavour still lingered on her tongue; as did the hard pounding inside her chest whenever the bit of scent she now carried against her own cheek drifted back. No other Stamen had wrecked such havoc with her every sense, and she now wished she had used her chance earlier to brush her horns against him.

It all translated in her mind to one almost shocking realisation.

"I think," Zero Two said with a happy smile directed at the boy, "I've taken a liking to you." She lowered her head slightly, watching the light of her inhibitor cast a shining reflection against the boy's neck. A teasing, dangerous smile found her lips. "Won't you be my darling?"

His green-blue eyes looked up at her, struggling to comprehend. "Darling? What... what is that? Do you mean, like, your Partner?"

Had she meant that? There was Code 081, but she knew he was on death's door. And even of the former Stamen she tasted that had not been repulsive, nothing could ever compare. Zero Two wanted _this_ boy. She wanted to feel him link with her, wanted to see if his taste would communicate as they rode together, wanted to feel herself when they were a unit. She had not considered her words or desires before, but now... He felt like someone she could ride with forever.

Zero Two nodded, offering a hand to help him up to his feet. "Yeah. As my Stamen."

He leaned away from her, resting back on his hands as his dulled green-blue eyes mournfully looked up at her. "Weren't you listening? I lost the ability. I can’t-"

She shook her head, her smile remaining in place. "I don't believe that. I think your ability is still there, but dormant somehow. I can reawaken it for you. I can make you ride with me."

A spark of hope lit his eyes up before it was snuffed out. "I brought my current Partner to ruin. You seem nice. I don't want to ruin you or your chances to be a Parasite. Why risk what you have?"

The smile turned into a grin, her hand closing into a light fist. "Nothing can stop me from riding a FRANXX." She hesitated a moment, her grin melting into a sweet smile that warmed her sea green eyes. "But, well, you also weren't frightened by my horns when we met. I have a good feeling about you."

Zero Two watched as his eyes slid up and regarded them. "They draw me in, if I'm honest. I find them alluring."

Something almost coy entered her smile, and she opened her hand as she reached for his again.

Slowly, hesitantly, the boy leaned up and reached out for her hand as well. Their fingertips closed in on one another when Zero Two sensed _them_ behind her. The girl closed her open palm into a tight fist as the underbrush rustled behind her.

Zero Two’s smile vanished as she let her arm fall to her side. "Too bad." Her pink hair fluttering she turned, looking at the forest coming to life behind her. "Time's up."

It was as if someone doused her body in alcohol. From head to toe the warmth this strange boy had lit in her burned off, replaced by the cool sting of her reality. There was no one who could ride with her forever. And the fleeting feelings of excitement and happiness of the last half hour or so were not meant to be in her life.

Zero Two turned fully, trying to at least block the view of these humans from the boy. She wanted to keep him away from them for some reason. The thought of any Adult approaching him made her horns thrum wilfully. It made her fangs ache.

She first saw a group of four face-plated guardsmen. Their short magma-tipped lances slowly lost their glow as they decided she was no threat. Brave or stupid, Zero Two had to admit standing down was possibly the smarter idea for them. Off to the sides of the guards, four suited assistants appeared, alongside Hachi. "You led us on quite a chase. I've had to lock down half the Plantation while we were looking for you."

One of the assistants, who was carrying her white hat and coat, approached her. "Why do you keep running off on your own?"

The Pistil stood at near attention, the perfect image of a Special Forces Parasite. Her body's posture was not mirrored in the casual, bored way she answered. "Whatever. It's not like there's anything at all to do for me until tomorrow morning's welcoming ceremony for the new squadron."

The suited man put her hat on, hiding her horns. Her reproachful gaze at him was blocked by the visor. "You can’t make us all spend this much time being concerned over what you are up to," he said, not seeing the dark glare she directed forward.

A second assistant stepped in beside the Pistil, and they both draped the large greatcoat over her shoulders like a king’s cape during an ascension to the throne.

A third one walked past her, and her eyes flicked to her side for a moment before she surrendered to them fussing over her. If she put up a fight, she'd only be taken in for medical 'testing'.

One of the assistants resumed his scolding. "Your partner is already in bad shape. Your actions could make his condition worse if he gets excited. Think of him for a change occasionally!"

Behind her, the third assistant addressed the boy, who had just softly breathed, "Partner?"

"You there. You’re a Parasite cadet? One for the welcoming ceremony tomorrow, yes? I apologise if she bothered you. She’ll be kept away from you, so this won't happen again."

Zero Two huffed. They talked about her like she was an unruly animal that needed to be leashed up. And maybe, just maybe, they weren't actually wrong in that assessment of her.

Since they had shown up and interrupted her talk with the boy, she felt her inhibitor press against her horns stronger with each passing second. She thought she could feel her skull creak from the pressure. Her fangs ached and she wanted to snarl at everyone around them – but ten years of learning how that lead to pain guided her into falling into silent brooding instead. To the outside, she now simply appeared cold and detached. A special forces Parasite, waiting for her next order.

As assistants both talked down to her and drilled the boy on not discussing what he saw, she let her mind drift.

Of course, the Pistil knew what others thought of her. Knew the way she was shown off to anyone who would notice her as this dangerous and hardly controlled beast. The horned, fanged monster; raised by A.P.E. to kill Klaxosaurs. That was her. That was all there was to her – or so the tales went around the Squadrons of the Plantations she had served on.

The Pistil had given up on trying to correct the tales of what kind of monster she was. In a way, it served her well enough. Nobody tried to befriend her, and she could move on without ever feeling like she left something or someone behind. It also made sure that any Stamen she was partnered with was treated with a kind of elevated respect that she felt was a fair deal for the problems that would eventually kill her Partners.

Zero Two's sea-green eyes turned hollow as she barely noticed Hachi chewing her out, directed guards to secure her path, and ordered others to take the boy into custody. She hoped for his sake they did not know she had been close to him. She knew sometimes that alone could lead to long painful examinations of the ones she touched.

The assistants surrounding her started to direct her forward, falling in behind the guards Hachi had left with her group.

The boy shouted behind her, a tinge of desperation in his voice. "Your name! What is your name?"

Zero Two halted her feet. She wanted to turn around and look at the boy once more for just a fleeting moment to maybe reawaken the tingle on her tongue. But that was foolish. A pipe dream. And dreams do not kill Klaxosaurs.

Still, his question put her off-balance. Without turning to face him, she seemed to direct her answer to the assistant beside her. "You ask for my _name_? You _are_ a strange one. Do we Parasites even have names?"

A beat of silence. He said nothing else and she found herself unable to face him.

Relenting, the Pistil added, "But, well, my Code is Zero Zero Two. And I like to be called _Zero Two_." With that admission he girl started walking, following the guard that had stopped and turned to look back at her when he had not stayed closely to him.

Zero Two left the boy behind. She had not asked for his code or requested to learn more about him. Their meeting had been a fleeting moment, and whatever feelings he had stirred up inside of her, she could not even claim a new Stamen while her old one was alive.

Code 081 was dying, sure, but alive. And the Pistil was not enough of a monster to not finish what she started. He wouldn't just suffer on like this. He wouldn’t just remain in Franxx’ clutches for biopsies and experimentation. She would let him die in combat. He had been nice enough, compared to many of the other ones that rode with her.

Just as when she had arrived at this Plantation, nobody spoke to her. Plans were made, changes to the schedule were bemoaned, discussions about meetings were had.

None of the conversation included Zero Two's input. Most of it was certainly about her and her role as a guard during the upcoming ceremony, but nothing she could have any say in.

Ceremonies seemed to always draw a Klaxosaur or two in. It was possibly the higher output of magma energy during the broadcast of the ceremony that lured the beasts toward the Plantations. Normally, several FRANXX would cover such an event, but as her flight here had shown - they were in the middle of nowhere. They possibly didn't expect even one Klaxosaur to come pay their respects.

"What a damn waste of time," Zero Two muttered aloud.

Of course, nobody reacted to her, not that she had expected them to.

The Pistil was jostled into the elevator and brought straight to the city, where the assistants and Hachi left in one direction of the hallway; while the guards directed down the other. Filled with gloom, Zero Two paid no attention to the large panoramic windows showing the golden City of the Plantation's core. She knew where she was headed, roughly. One of the ever-interchangeable apartments they reserved for her.

Never had she wished to sleep where they kept the Plantation’s Parasites more than today.

The girl gingerly lifted her right hand and rubbed it against her left cheek a few times before inconspicuously pulling her hand forward to her nose, giving it a tentative sniff and a slow lick.

It was still there. That scent. That taste. And while lesser than it was before, it still remained clinging to her; as did that feeling of her stomach flopping below her chest when she mixed their two scents together.

"Hey. You." She tried to get the guards' attention. "Who was that Stamen?"

Zero Two got more of a reaction than she had expected. One of the guards turned to look over his shoulder. "Why do I care? He was a Parasite." He turned back to face forward, the implication of his lacking desire to know heavier in the action.

The Pistil did not try a second time. She let them deposit her into an apartment and knew the door would lock behind her a third time. The Hachi of this plantation seemed to know his stuff, seeing as he managed to track her down so quickly. She was sure he had read her dossier and talked to Doctor Franxx about her habits.

With a sigh, Zero Two unzipped her uniform and stepped out of her clothing, leaving a trail of shredded dress, socks, boots, and underwear in her wake toward the dark back of her apartment.

She flopped into the bed on her belly, her arms crossed under her chin. There was a scent about her, and she curiously sniffed her arm. It smelled slightly musty. A hint of corruption. A hint of earthiness. It must have been the lake water that had dried on her skin that gave off this aroma.

And, as she let her nose trail up her arm to her wrist, more of that boy's scent mixed in.

She finally pressed her nose against the back of her hand, where their scent still lingered and intermingled. Zero Two closed her eyes slowly and inhaled deeply. It still made her heart skip a beat; still gave her that odd warm feeling.

With an annoyed grunt, she rolled onto her back, her pink hair pulling her scalp lightly as she put her weight on it. "What gives? Not like it really matters..." Her eyes slid closed slowly and she exhaled slowly and fully. "But it would be nice, wouldn't it? A new Partner already..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A special thanks to User _Eh Mattissimo_ here on AO3, who is helping me as editor for this fic now.  
> It is appreciated.... even when you snarkily call me out for the first 900 words of this fic taking 15 seconds in the anime~
> 
> If you enjoy yourself some Yuri, stop by his fic. I warmly recommend his fate/Stay Night fic Heirs - and that's totally because I pitch in as HIS editor there. x3


	18. Chapter 18

Standing in the heart of the military command centre of _Cerasus,_ designation Plantation 13; Hachi, Code Zero Zero Eight, took stock of the tactical situation of his new post.

The Plantation commander had stern, hawk-like features. Low-buzzed, blue hair covered the top of his head in dark stubble. His thin, straight, and slightly triangular nose jutted forward somewhat, driving home the resemblance to a bird of prey's beak. The sharp folds over the ridge of his nose made it seem as if he wore a perpetual frown, even when he was simply observing. His dark eyes rarely showed anything other than calm control. Contrasted by the youthful, smooth face of a twenty-something year old, he still conducted himself with the gravitas of a veteran military officer. Simply by looking at him, one would not have expected one of the top commanders of A.P.E. standing before them.

As was normal for the man, Hachi stood at military precise 'ease', his hands clasped at the small of his back, his feet apart only slightly. He found this posture to be comfortable; felt that it was giving him the appearance of calm, collected leadership and direction those working for him could look up to and take strength from. Like most days, he simply stood in the middle of the small, dome-shaped room - the heart of the defence of his Plantation - and had not moved about much since he entered.

The Command Centre, a section of the Plantations inner military complex, connected to the Parasite Briefing Room by a small series of offices and hallways. It employed a regular shift of seven staff beside the commander. More were not needed outside of extreme emergencies, thanks to most of the Plantation running itself. The officers here were a backup for the computers. They monitored threats, both internal and external, provided close-range support for Parasites, kept an eye on the magma reserves, and calculated the course of the hulking cities. For the most part, however, they functioned as a biological fail-safe in case damage to the Plantation caused any malfunctions in the computing or automation of processes.

The workstations faced walls with holographic displays that could switch from being screens to three-dimensional maps in the centre of the room at the press of a button. Seven officers faced their section of wall all around the rounded room while a much larger, central holo-monitor covered one third of the curved wall with the commander's display. The smaller stations of the other officers could be switched around as needed, but most of the time, they shared a number of monitored sensors, satellite reports, and internal cameras between them.

Currently, all seven Adults sat in their places surrounding Hachi; rank and file officers of A.P.E, the lot of them. Aside from the commander, they all wore the standard white and grey uniforms with the typical Adult face plates that hid who they were. Only much older, higher-ranking officers, or those who had grown up as Parasites, felt enough at ease to show their real faces - a clear breach of contemporary social laws of modesty. However, as most Parasites burned up in the promised blaze of glory that Papa told them to feel during initiations, the number of Parasites that managed to survive long enough for that were fractions of a percentage. And so, aside from Hachi, all faces in the room were covered by anonymous metal plates, even on rare occasions when other members of the military or workforce entered the command centre.

To the majority of citizens of a Plantation, it was considered utterly vulgar to show one’s face to anyone but maybe their own partners. As was tradition, for centuries, one man and one woman lived together. A long time ago, humans met face-to-face with friends still, but modern use of other recreational means left the last remaining connection with others to be their Partner. And yet... most did not even remember one another's faces. Or, often, their names.

While it felt weird to him, as a former Parasite, to hide one's face; Hachi had accepted the world as it was. It had been the easiest to conform and submit to the traditions of humankind. And, in the end, his studious nature and his calm demeanour had lifted him from the ranks of Parasites, and he had not shown signs of ageing since then. He would never dream of hiding his face; nor forget the names of those he had walked alongside in life. Even if, due to the nature of Codes being reassigned as needed inside a Plantation, their identifier was changed. Someone he might have grown up with in Garden as Coode 201 could now be in a Plantation, working as Code 006 or T622899. Still, Hachi knew he would remember and recognise them. Faces remained the same - Codes did not.

None of these thoughts distracted him from his duties. His eyes scanned the information of eight points on the large map in front of him. One was the large, clearly marked Plantation _Cerasus_ and its path forward _._ Four were estimated locations, directions and sizes of Klaxosaurs about two day’s travel away from them. Three of them were known and confirmed size and location close enough for a day’s travel.

With that, seven Klaxosaurs were being tracked at this time, none larger than a moderate _Mohorovičić_ -class - or that was the hope. The experienced commander’s eyes flicked to the electronic data pad laying in front of him on the large touch board spanning the length of the room, allowing for fast re-arrangement of data layout and tracking of information.

The frown on the hawk-like face etched itself deeper as he picked the pad up. He navigated away from the overview of Strelitzia and called forth more information on the special FRANXX that were being prepared for tomorrow's ceremony. Doctor Franxx had assured him that, for the special forces team the old man had brought along, three of them at once shouldn't make a big difference. If there were more than three Klaxosaurs... well. They would need to make sure they minimised their risks.

Without needing to raise his voice in the quiet room, Hachi said, "Navigation. Confirm with the Mayor. _Cerasus_ is to stop its journey for three days."

"Aye."

"We will also call in further shifts to the Plantation defence teams and man all canons at all times."

"Aye, Commander."

Hachi lifted his eyes from the pad and re-arranged some of the data sets on the large monitor, pointing out to the human officers in the room what he wanted to have observed by them in detail.   
After his command to stop the Plantation’s travel, the tactical display shifted. Now, only two larger Klaxosaur threats shown were highlighted, but the energy margins shifted to also show that standing stationary here would consume more magma fuel.

The hawk-like man took a few steps back, clasped the electronic clipboard behind his back, and silently observed the situation. He understood this was a critical phase - the time he had to prepare for any eventuality in the next 72 hours.

The current location of Plantation 13, the just arriving Communications and Parasite Caregiver Officer Nana, even the fresh crop of new Parasites - it all had been carefully arranged to be just so. Years of shrewd planning, Papa-knew-what favours being called in, and pressure against opposing parties when needed. Now that it all was in place, Doctor Franxx said that starting tomorrow this Plantation would be most of his focus.

It was, after all, the culmination of ten years of work. The heart piece of his biggest experiment.

Hachi further knew that Franxx could treat any Plantation he chose as his own personal petri dish. The millions of residents of _Cerasus_ were unlikely to know about any of all of this. While details about the military wing of each Plantation was readily available information; outside of the flashy stuff, most would not even bother to even just review the Codes of their squadron before they had their first sorties. The vast majority of Adults who lived in the cities were just consumers of the wealth of humanity. Very few of them chose to be the ones who kept themselves busy now and again by running machinery, oversee manufacturing of medications and nourishment, run the military complex, or simply step into ceremonial roles now and again.

Yes, not having to worry about votes, or waiting for a city to decide what a Plantation would do next helped a lot. They were effectively passengers on the protective palm of A.P.E. and the military who ran the war against Klaxosaurs. It was a lot less to worry about when he only needed to write two sets of reports - one for A.P.E. and the... other one.

Before transferring here, 'Hachi' had lived under a different name and code as a teacher at Garden; a trait he shared with the soon arriving 'Nana, Code 007 of Plantation 14'. And while _she_ was officially listed in Garden as a Counsellor, his own duty had been Combat Instructor. These two positions had only been examples of the many jobs the two of them had held over the past decades, but for him, it had been possibly one of the ones he enjoyed the least. There was nothing to do except FRANXX combat drills, review metrics, order medical evaluations when these metrics proved difficult, and return to more repeats of trained lessons. He had made or burned up Parasites - and he had been deemed outstanding enough at his job that he had carried it for several crops…no matter how much he disliked it.

Now would be the fifth time he served as military overseer of a Plantation. The fifth time his Code had been adjusted to _Zero Zero Eight_. But this was only the third time he had worked with-

The large sliding doors that led to the hallway connecting the different briefing rooms opened and a woman in the female version of the grey A.P.E officer uniform entered. Her wavy reddish hair flowed past her shoulders with each step. Her slender build moved with ease in the high heels which complimented her long, side-slit skirt.

The smile on her face was genuine as Nana flung her arms around Hachi from the side and gave him a quick hug. "It's been so long!"

His arms hung at his side at first, but he lifted one hand to gently pat her back twice. "Code Zero Zero Seven. I am pleased to see you."

The twenty-something looking woman laughed with the free spirit of a teenager at him. "Oh, we’re being formal, then? Very well, Code Zero Zero Eight." She stepped back and saluted. "Wishing to report I have boarded Plantation 13."

His stern features relaxed a fraction. "You’re right. It _is_ good to see you, Nana." As she dropped her salute and he turned back to face the main monitors, he added gently, "How was your trip?"

The woman stepped beside him and scanned the different displays on the large holo-monitor as well. "Long. And Code Zero Zero Two is a bit of a handful."

From the corner of his eyes he saw her red curls bounce as she shook her head slightly.

"I thought I understood what I would be dealing with after I read her dossier. An Elite, officially still member of the Nines, even if she refuses to wear their white Nines uniform and instead wore the red Elite’s uniform. She seems to get bored easily, but she doesn't do anything to entertain herself once she feels boredom, either. When she wasn't acting out, she slept."

"A.P.E. does not need her to be well read; we need her to fight." Hachi commented matter-of-factly. He copied a tactical overview from the large display to the pad in his hands and offered the woman beside him the electronic note board. While Nana nodded her thanks to him and gazed over the data, he continued, "I have reviewed her files and she seems impressive by any standard, even while she was part of the Nines. She seems more than capable. We should be fine with the risk assessments I carried out in the last week."

Nana nodded as she studied the data. "You were the squadron leader for a reason back then," she mumbled, barely audible. 

Still, he caught it, and shot her a quick, surprised glance. "You remember?"

Patting his arm while still reading, she said. "Of course, I do. You were my Squadron leader and we rode a few times, too."

His normally stern expression mellowed a little bit, his own memories of his time as a Stamen surfacing for just a few moments. He had worked with about a dozen or so Pistils; though the woman beside him now only ever had three Stamen. And then there was the time that made Franxx take an interest in his Squadron. It was a moment that changed much of their lives, really.

Hachi ran his hand over his stubbly hair as he turned back to the main display. "Well, it helped us to become excellent officers."

The man thought she was about to say something when the doors to the Command Centre slid open once more. Both turned in surprise. Hardly anyone ever visited the command centres of Plantations; and absolutely never unannounced.

_Ah. All but one._

Doctor Werner Franxx slowly hobbled into the room and raised his voice at once. "Officers, if you would excuse Hachi, Nana, and myself for half an hour?" His remaining natural eye bore into the stubble-haired man, not bothering to look at the officers.

They simply saw the uniform of a high-ranking A.P.E. official and did as they were told; leaving the room orderly and quietly.

The doors slid shut and Franxx turned to a console, entered a command, and sealed the room from the outside world.

With a sudden fire that nobody who saw his frail and partly cybernetic body would have expected, he turned on the two former Parasites. While his synthetic voice normally worked just fine, the fury making him shiver right now let it vibrate even more than it normally already did. " _What the hell have you done to Code Zero One Six_?"

He hobbled forward to the main display, leaning heavily on his walking stick. Franxx pulled an electronic clipboard from his greatcoat and dropped it onto the main display's scanning area. At once his own data started to populate the hulking orange-red holographic screen. Medical data, combat stats, everything down to the nutrient consumption of the past thirty days of the young boy with shaggy black hair started to come to life.

As the doctor pointed with his stick at the screen, he rounded in on the two younger adults. Parts of the hologram warbled around the warped wood passing through it.

"You two have been involved in this for ten years! You were chosen by me _personally_ to help groom these Parasites. I have so many plans! So much was finely adjusted! Then, as I get ready to set things into motion... _you lose me Code Zero One Six_?!" Shivering in rage, he stared down Hachi – a feat for the much smaller scientist. 

The younger man noticed from the corner of his eye that Nana shot him a small worried glance, but he simply took his common commanding pose and addressed the Doctor levelly. "By the time my Plant managed to reach the Plantation, the Parasites had already arrived and started their pre-ceremony evaluations. The medical team you selected had been traveling with me, and they were here too late to handle the needed check-ups themselves. When we finally took over, many problematic records had already been created. You know of the ones. Code Two One Four is overweight. Codes One Nine Six and Zero Five Six both need corrective glasses, which for the Pistil is not as much a problem as it is for the Stamen."

Franxx waved off all comments in a large gesture. "I saw that. I did my bit of politicking around that. I still think the geezers from A.P.E. tried that one on me. But I have already fixed all that! I started making the needed entries before even coming out here!"

"Finally," Hachi resumed, "Codes Zero One Six and Seven Zero Three failed the final connection sync test. It was nearly fatal for the Pistil. These processes are supervised by a team of staffers, Doctor, and not done by me privately. Furthermore, their team was fully assembled and present during their failure. These tests are always done in near-combat conditions, so the entire team was called into the simulators collectively. I had no means of repressing the information that they failed, not with staff and eight other Parasites witnessing it.." His gaze searched the old man's face to see if he understood. "If I had covered for Codes Zero One Six and Seven Zero Three, a deeper investigation into the other Parasites of Plantation 13 would have been much more likely."

Nana turned to the young man at her side and interjected, "Diid we find out yet what caused the failure? We know that there was some kind of feedback during the linking, don’t we? "

Hachi simply shook his head. "I have no idea how a Pistil could end up this hurt during a simple simulation. "

For a few tense moments, neither of the three present moved. Franxx’s breath wheezed thinly; the rage clear as day in the remainder of his natural face. Just as Nana tried to speak up, Franxx leaned with both hands on his stick and said with an icey, quiet tone, "I thought one of the star Combat Instructors of Garden would be able to brush a measly team of green Parasites up to the task of flying at least with other partners. I assumed you would find a way to make this work, Hachi!"

"I already did what I could in Garden, Doctor. When Zero One Six started to become more erratic in his test results, I shifted some partners around. I wanted to protect Code Zero One Five, who showed astounding tactical abilities. I needed to find new Partners quickly. Code Zero Five Six was delighted with the arrangement and they linked up perfectly."

Hachi pulled up some data himself, showing six files. As he spoke, he re-arranged them. "I split Zero One Six from his Partner and protected his possible damage against Pistil Zero One Six by partnering her with Stamen Zero Five Six." Two partners lit up on the screen and moved side-by-side. Now, one girl remained without a partner. "His former Pistil, Code Two Two One, was moved to another Squadron, together with the Stamen One Zero One." Two more partners lit up and moved together. "Removing this Stamen freed up his Pistil, Code Seven Zero Three, who had shown during her trials that she could link swiftly with most other Parasites from her Garden class."

Here Nana jumped in to offer some help. "Their class in Garden was monitored closely by me for years, and I can attest to what Hachi said. They all grew up together at the Garden facility. I reported on them to you and Hachi in detail, Doctor, for years. And while Code Zero One Six _was_ the natural born leader we all knew, their class at Garden has produced more Parasites than many other. Your approach to raising them without emotional suppressants _did_ work!"

"If those experiments cannot produce stable Parasites, Nana, they are a _flat failure_!"

"We do not know that yet, Doctor." The woman tried to take a step forward and softened her voice further. "So far, it is only this pairing. And while, yes, Code Seven Zero Three is currently hurt, Code Zero One Six can be worked with. We can simply start new medical trials and-"

"The ceremony is tomorrow, Nana," the old man's voice grated, "Even I can’t forge the needed paperwork that quickly and cause nobody to notice! The Pistil is currently in a coma from the failed linking process. Normally, we would have shipped her off the Plantation already."

"Yes, I understand, Doctor, but I had hoped if you yourself checked into her situation..."

Hachi turned from Nana's attempts to charm the furious doctor to review the files of the Parasites he had opened for the old man. He knew he had made the right call. Without his intervention and some changeups of the partnerships three years ago, Code Zero One Five would not have been designated Squadron Leader; he was certain of that. Tactical understanding and the ability to command was rare in Parasites, and he wanted to make sure her talent was not harmed.

It was a shame about Zero One Six, however. What the Pistil had in tactical understanding, Code Zero One Five had in charisma. Losing him meant that their ideal leadership team was broken up. But would they lose him wholly now?

"We could," Hachi said thoughtfully into a moment of calm between the three present, "we could announce that they failed due to a physical condition on part of the Pistil. Everyone saw she was injured. A malfunction in the testing unit caused her a seizure, for example, and shut her controls down; failing them both."

Doctor Franxx shuffled closer to the screen and peered up at it, pulling the results of the Partnership tests and the medical status of the involved Parasites closer. "Seven Zero Three won't be able to link for at least half a year, based on these injuries. But we can train her and make sure she can still function as a Pistil by the time she recovers from the nerve damage her Stamen caused her." The old man started to tap an erratic rhythm out with his walking staff. "That should give us time to find out how on earth Zero One Six could cause such a catastrophic surge in the system when they linked. Maybe run some medical experiments on him..."

Nana stepped beside Hachi, keeping her old comrade between her and the Doctor. There was clear unease in her voice as she hesitantly spoke up. "I understand the boy had a memory suppression at a very young age. Maybe that can have side effects we simply do not understand. I mean, it is rarely done on children, correct?"

"It was _never_ done on a child before," Franxx corrected her with a huff. "But I had to. Knowledge of Zero Two could not leak out past the involved medical and guard staff at the time. She was the first cross-breed that did not simply need to be discarded."

Hachi felt Nana stiffen beside him and swallow in an audible gulp. He cast her a quick glance and found her looking quite nauseous.

The doctor continued, pointing at the holographic monitor. "We need to hold on to each of these children. They are part of the first crop without psychopharmacological suppressants I have managed to bring through the filters the old geezers installed. I can find a way to make it that this works out, but I demand that you both step up!" The old man turned on the younger adults with a glower. "I won't lose any of them before we can even see if my hypothesis on individualism works."

Nana nodded, still shaken by some of the things she heard. To cover for her unease, Hachi spoke up. "So, what will we do about _Cyclamen_?"

Doctor Franxx waved off the concern. "These special FRANXX must stay with their Pistils. If Zero One Six cannot ride with her, maybe someone else can. I will monitor the situation and check if a partner swap needs to happen. It would be a waste for Seven Zero Three to not show her own potential."

With that, he turned away and shuffled to the exit. He waved his walking stick in the air and said grumpily, "Send Zero One Six to visit her. We can grab some images and present them to the Plantation tomorrow during the ceremony. They like seeing their Parasites in pairings."

"Excuse me!" Nana shouted after him, "That Pistil is still very hurt. He could only stand by her bedside-" She stopped mid-sentence, flinching as if she had a sudden spike of a headache.

If Franxx had noticed, he showed no reaction as he resumed his way toward the door. "Sure. Makes for a dramatic shot, no? Get going. I have work to do as well."

As the door closed behind the doctor, Hachi had a moment to look at his old comrade. "Are you okay?"

The doors hissed open, and the officers returned to their positions.

Nana straightened up and gave the commander a smile. "Fine, fine. I think I'm just tired from the long journey. I should go to my quarters and unwind. I'll talk to you later, yes?"

He simply nodded, watched her give him a warm smile, and turned back to his displays as she left.

Following the doctor's directive, the commander sent a message to Zero One Six, instructing him he was to report to his Pistil. Hachi then informed the medical staff and instructed them to capture moments of care shown by the Stamen to his injured Pistil.

That done, Hachi, Code Zero Zero Eight, fell back into his normal stance before the large holographic monitor and observed the data filing in from around their Plantation.


End file.
